Hello. I'm Rob from just outside Southend on Sea. I joined this fine forum a week or so ago after looking at a 2009 Octavia vrs Special Edition.

 

I got frightened off by the whole cam chain tensioner issue, despite it having just had a new chain and tensioner. It was changed at an independent garage and I don't know if genuine parts were used. I also read many cars have suffered failure at 30-40k miles, so what's to say the new parts won't? We're in no rush, so why buy a car I'm going to worry about. Gorgeous car other than a buckled alloy too.

 

We've now seen a 1.8t Mk1 estate in Elegance trim. Hopefully we'll see that later and give it a test drive.

 

Kirkynut 

 

 

A warm welcome to the Forum !

Hello Kirkynut welcome to the Skoda forum , good to have you with us , read up on the engines, take your time the right one will come along . 

Cheers for the welcomes! This seems like a friendly enough forum.

 

We've still not bought another car yet but have till April when the Mrs E46 325i is due it's MOT. It will be scrapped instead as it's rotten on the sills and I'm past chasing rust on cars.

 

We saw a great Mk1 Octavia estate 1.8t 4x4. It was local, so we went to see it but the garage had a guy half way from the West Midlands enroute to see it and we knew if he was coming from the West Midlands he was going to buy it. He did.

 

Now the original 09 Octavia Vrs special edition we looked at and liked is still for sale. We steered clear as it has a buckled wheel and all 4 need a refurb and the timing chain, tensioner and guides have just been replaced. 

 

This brought my attention to the problem. Now it could be viewed as a good thing that they've been replaced but they were failing at 30-40k miles at new, which is what worries me. 

 

I might be being a big jessie here though and might be passing up a good and we'll looked after Special Edition for the extra price of sorting out the wheels. 

 

Decisions, decisions!

 

Kirkynut 

Edited 23 December, 20187 yr by kirkynut

Well we've looked at a few now but last week we travelled up to Mansfield to a Skoda specialist called Avenue Cars to look at a 56 plate Octavia vRS estate in blue on about 79k miles. 

 

We'd driven a black one just like it the week before that was 2 hours away and it was a dog. It idled rough until warm and had no guts.

 

The blue one was the opposite though. The garage know their onions it seems and replaced the cam belt, water pump, the little cam chain and the high pressure fuel pump drive.  It's had new oil and filter and coolant. We bought it!

 

I'll start a thread under projects but it appears to be a peach!

 

Thanks to those who've given advice thus far. I know about cars in general but I'm new to the VAG world. 

 

Kirkynut 

I've started my own project thread now. See here:  

 

 

Kirkynut