I took my 2.0 D DSG estate in for its first service to my local independent garage. The mechanic is Audi trained and is good at his job. The dealer wanted £270 ish for the service and to put it on long life service regime, they offer the service for just over £150 to the manufacturer specifications.

 

The car has done just over 18500 miles and when I collected it from them, they advised that there is "a rumble in the engine bay" take it to the dealer for diagnosis ASAP. If they were going to look to diagnose it then they would to charge me, yet Skoda would have to diagnose it for themselves, needless to say I went straight down to the dealer and it's now booked in for next Monday.

 

The local independent garage said that it's either the water pump or a belt tensioner that is likely to be causing the rumble, my question is, should I be worried about continuing to use the car as I'm doing circa 500 miles per week, in all fairness I've not had a listen for the rumble yet 

 

Your thoughts please.

I would say don’t use it, but if it’s under warranty and the Skoda dealer haven’t said “don’t use it”, then use it. 

 

6 hours ago, classic said:

I would say don’t use it, but if it’s under warranty and the Skoda dealer haven’t said “don’t use it”, then use it. 

 

 

This was my thoughts exactly, however the dealer representative never said anything about not using the car in the meantime. I'm just trying to keep my milage to a minimum. Unfortunately I don't have access to another vehicle, so I'm stuck using this one. 

 

I have had a check through the water pump thread on here and all of those seem to be older models, I've not seen one my age in there. I'm going to have a listen tonight when I start it up then again when I get home when it's warmed up, see if there is any change in the sound.

Do you have the Name, Job tile or qualifications of who you spoke to? 

If not then what use is that?

 

Verbals are not worth the paper not written on. 

15 minutes ago, Skoffski said:

Do you have the Name, Job tile or qualifications of who you spoke to? 

If not then what use is that?

 

Verbals are not worth the paper not written on. 

 

Hmmmmmmmm fair point, however I never forget a face. Plus on going in to the dealership I had a chat about it with the salesman who sold me my previous car.

 

I guess I'll just have to have faith in that they are (as I have always found them to be) a decent bunch of people and have not let me down so far. Likewise on the flip side, they can't disprove any information that was given to me verbally as they haven't documented it and got me to sign a copy to say that I understand it.  So that will be one to resolve if and when.

 

Until next Monday morning, I'll be driving like Miss Daisy and keeping an eye on the engine temperature and also listening out for any discernable change to the rattling noise.

I have finally got round to having a good listen to the rattle/rumble in the engine bay, it's not noticeably different at first start or when warm. I've recorded the sound, seems to be coming from the back of the engine bay.

 

A quick update on the outcome of yesterday's visit to the dealer. The technician was struggling to hear the rattle/rumble in the engine bay and I received a phone call from the service desk to that effect. While I was on the phone the lady informed me that the battery was showing as being faulty, they found it as they did the safety inspection on the car. Would I agree to having it replaced free of charge under warranty? No problems with me on that one.

 

I was asked to go later that afternoon and point out the noise to the technician, as I was close by and working from home, not a problem.

 

On starting the car, I pointed out the noise, or what I thought to be the noise, it seemed to be diminished from previously listening to it by my ear, so I played him the recording. He said that was the injector's that could be heard on the recording, but to be sure, I should book it in again for a few days. Then they can check it cold and warmed up.

 

Slightly frustrating that the noise wasn't as noticeable as I remembered it to be. But it's been logged and checked, so it'll be recorded on the system. The bonus I guess the faulty battery was found and replaced. Not sure what exactly the fault was, all the technician said was there had been a batch that were beginning to fail. Lucky for me they had some arrive on back order yesterday.

Well, it seems ages since I started this thread, but I have finally had some closure with this issue, after taking the car back in to the local dealer again following my last post, they found that the engine gave out a distinct squeak on cold starting. This was indicative of a known issue that has been reported a few times on cars with this engine. The remedy was to change the cam belt and tensioners and pulleys. 

 

I finally got the work done this Mon/Tue and now I have the car back. Initially I was talked into having the water pump changed at a discounted cost of £210 however after speaking to my mechanic, I called and cancelled that before the end of last week, as it's only done 23,000 miles just over there should be no reason to swap out the water pump so early.

 

I'm giving it a week to settle in and then I'll be checking to see if the rattle has gone. I had heard the squeak before and just ignored it thinking it was due to the cold weather at the time. Glad I persisted as I could have possibly suffered a cam belt or pulley failure. That wouldn't have been good.

 

This was all done and covered under warranty, so no cost incurred.