Housing next to Cam Pulley

[pudding]

Good stuff

That clackety clack noise is horrendous.  Hard to believe that stupid little plastic ring can cause so much noise!

Providing the grooves in the VVT adjuster aren't deep enough to bleed off oil pressure, you should be fine.  Maybe switch to 5W/40 oil if you haven't already, which will help.  It was the metal rings on the early GTIs that caused deep grooves.  The plastic rings less so, but it seems they are a lot more fragile.  One problem swapped with another 

[Bens313]

The ones that came out were metal.... and broken.... Eek! Im guessing that if it is a problem in the future id probably notice the clacking from a broken ring again or VVT acting up so down on power or engine codes. Fingers crossed the grooves arnt too deep.

[pudding]

A good time to get the plastic/PTFE ones in then as it will slow the wear right down! 

Yeah you will either get the rattle again if a ring breaks, or if it's oil pressure related, a "Cam adjustment - slow response" fault code.

[Bens313]

So the car has been fine for just over a month with the new rings in but it threw the P000A slow response code today. Perhaps the Adjuster was a bit too worn. Going to see how frequent the codes are and replace the adjuster if needed. How frustrating!

[pudding]

I can't remember if you checked the cam sensor or not, but if not, it's worth making sure it isn't covered in metallic gunk as that can throw the P000A code if it gets contaminated enough.  It's cheap and easy to get to, so worth out-ruling before spending the big $s on cam phasers.