Hi guys,

 

I've had my 2016 Octavia VRS diesel estate since November last year and I love it. I've just noticed it's started making a noise though. I'm convinced it wasn't making this noise when I bought it. It's much worse when cold but it kinda never fully goes away. To me it sounds like a belt maybe? I will take it in to my local Skoda dealer as it's still under warranty, but I just wanted to get some opinions in the meantime if you wouldn't mind😊

 

 

Hopefully it's nothing too serious! 🙈

15 hours ago, simonds3135 said:

Hi guys,

 

I've had my 2016 Octavia VRS diesel estate since November last year and I love it. I've just noticed it's started making a noise though. I'm convinced it wasn't making this noise when I bought it. It's much worse when cold but it kinda never fully goes away. To me it sounds like a belt maybe? I will take it in to my local Skoda dealer as it's still under warranty, but I just wanted to get some opinions in the meantime if you wouldn't mind😊

 

 

Hopefully it's nothing too serious! 🙈

 

I had the EXACT sound in my newly bought 2015 RS Tdi 2 month ago.

They replaced the timing belt and every tensioner and pulleys, they said it is an common issue so there is an standard plan for this. 

Luckely for me my car comes with an warranty , the cost was around 11000 Swedish krona (900 GBP)

I told them to change the waterpump while there in there and paid for it myself (around 265 GBP).

 

 

Edited 10 January, 20206 yr by Obalaan

There is a a skoda letter concerning it. Had my belts changed under used car warranty I bought with the car. Hope the pictures are readable. 

Hi Obalaan and Settol, thank you so much for your replies. Oh dear, I didn't even think it might be related to the timing belt, but I did think it might be one of the less important belts. The car has done 61k miles, I forgot to mention that in my original post.

 

Settol - Thank you for taking the time to post those images, but unfortunately they are too pixelated so I cant quite read the text on them 😔 Is there any way you could upload them at a higher-res please? I would be really interested to read through them 😊👍 Thank you!

32 minutes ago, simonds3135 said:

Hi Obalaan and Settol, thank you so much for your replies. Oh dear, I didn't even think it might be related to the timing belt, but I did think it might be one of the less important belts. The car has done 61k miles, I forgot to mention that in my original post.

 

Settol - Thank you for taking the time to post those images, but unfortunately they are too pixelated so I cant quite read the text on them 😔 Is there any way you could upload them at a higher-res please? I would be really interested to read through them 😊👍 Thank you!

 

I´m in the metric system so i don´t know how far 61k miles is but i changed the timing belt at 90000km.

About 120000km too short of the interval.

 

Edited 10 January, 20206 yr by Obalaan

let me try this..

attached a word doc, hope you can read it

chuffing.docx

37 minutes ago, Obalaan said:

how far 61k miles is

61_128*8/5 km [ 97,804.8 km ]

2 minutes ago, KenONeill said:

61_128*8/5 km [ 97,804.8 km ]

 

So basicly 61000 x 1.6 = 97600

 

About the same milage 

 

Just wanted to say thank you to everyone for their replies and help so far 😊 I have a bit of an update - Just had a look at the car with my nextdoor neighbour who is a mechanic, and we had a 'listening device' on it. I don't know what its proper name is, but basically like a glorified electronic stethoscope. We sprayed a bit of water onto the fan belt and it doesn't seem to be that, we listened to all the bearings on it including alternator and doesn't seem to be any of those either. Doesn't seem to be coming from the cambelt cover or anywhere. We cannot re-create the noise in the headphones of the device anywhere on the engine. Hmmm. So then we took the plastic engine cover off the top of the engine and we both thought the noise got louder. Again, we couldn't re-create the 'chuffing' noise in the headphones by touching anything anywhere. After taking the engine cover off, it does seem to take the noise away from any of the belts and appear that it's coming from the top of the engine somewhere. Kinda sounds like air being pumped or something? Some kinda vacuum opening & closing? No sign of any leaks or anything. Everything seems perfect, car runs perfect, it's just the noise. Surely if there was a vacuum leak or something I would have an error on the dash? I have scanned with OBDeleven and have absolutely no fault codes at all.

Turn the radio up........🤣

Does it sound like this on the video? 

 

 

Does the noise start when the engine Is cold or when its at running tempture?

2 hours ago, Settol said:

Does it sound like this on the video? 

 

 

 

Yes, to me it sounds absolutely 100% identical to the sound in your video! If I play your video then mine straight after, they sound the same. I didn't think of trying to look underneath mine as the sound somehow sounds like it's coming from the top. Will have another look tomorrow. Thanks so much for posting your video 👍

49 minutes ago, Stuart-h said:

Does the noise start when the engine Is cold or when its at running tempture?

 

Hi Stuart, I did initially think that the noise was there when cold but it disappeared once the car was warm. When I was looking today though, I realised I was wrong - The noise is still there when the car is warm. Takes a few seconds to appear from a cold start if that makes sense.

13 minutes ago, simonds3135 said:

 

Yes, to me it sounds absolutely 100% identical to the sound in your video! If I play your video then mine straight after, they sound the same. I didn't think of trying to look underneath mine as the sound somehow sounds like it's coming from the top. Will have another look tomorrow. Thanks so much for posting your video 👍

It will be the timing belt, once they changed mine the noise went away completely. 

Mine does that when it's very cold, but it goes once the engine is up to temperature.

 

Can't say I've heard it when it's been a warm start.

3 hours ago, Settol said:

It will be the timing belt, once they changed mine the noise went away completely. 

And the same for me. 

After the change it was gone. 

Mine sounded exactly like both of your videos. 

And like I said, it's a common problems with these engines as there is a written action plan for it. 

Two independent vw mechanic said the same thing when they listened to my noise. 

 

 

Does anyone actually know what is causing this?  New belt kit fixes it but the cause....?

Hi Obalaan and Settol (and anyone else who has experienced this noise and had it solved by a timing belt replacement) - Was your noise there constantly or did it go away or decrease when the engine was warm? This is another video of my car after I got home from work tonight, and the noise has pretty much gone all together until you go very close to the car and listen really carefully....

 

 

There is one very very strange thing, however - When I go to work in the morning, the noise is still very obvious (like in my original video) when I get there. But when I get home from work, the noise is nearly gone (as the above video)??? Same exact journey, just in the opposite direction and at a different time of day 😂 What the hell like. Incase it matters, the journey is 15 miles and approx 20 / 25 mins.

@simonds3135 - your case is more like the vacuum-oil pump **** problem. It's detectable on cold and noisier from the right side (where your video is). Once reaching operational temperature it's gone.

 

Search the forum for that topic and share if you fix it (somehow) please.

There was a failing pulley and tensioner that’s sounded like that.

 

Know issue and worth checking the tensioner as failure is petty much engine death.

Update - Spoke to my local Skoda dealer today and the car is booked in for next Wednesday morning for them to diagnose. Am dropping it off Tuesday night so they can hear the noise at its worst from a cold start on the Wednesday. When I mentioned that I'd done some research online and the most likely causes seem to be timing belt / tensioners or vacuum oil pump, his words were literally "well neither of those are known issues and we've never had a VRS in for either of those things", so that fills me with hope straight away after what you guys have said on here 😂🙄 

 

Nevermind! See how we get on and will report back next week 👍

The belt tensioner had mine replaced early and I got the pump done too.

 

I also got what I would say was a reasonable contribution from Skoda bearing in mind the mileage was beyond warranty.

Mine was definitely louder when cold and very quiet when warm, I would question him on the letter I attached earlier in the post as it is in fact a known issue. Why else would skoda send its dealers a letter about it...? 

 

Good luck and if you have the belt done, might be worth having the water pump changed at the same time. 

8 hours ago, Settol said:

Mine was definitely louder when cold and very quiet when warm, I would question him on the letter I attached earlier in the post as it is in fact a known issue. Why else would skoda send its dealers a letter about it...? 

 

Good luck and if you have the belt done, might be worth having the water pump changed at the same time. 

 

Thanks Settol, I will definitely print out your word document and take it with me when I drop the car off 👍