Just how common is this fault ? Surely if there had been lots of failures it would have become a re call ? Is it just a handfull of cars or what ?
As ive pointed out a gazillion times on the other forum VW dont like to admit they make mistakes.
If its a saftey related item they will eventually do a recall. It took them public humiliation and a death in Australia before they did with the dsg box.
The sad thing is the tensioner is NOT classed as a saftey related item because its only the ratchet that fails. It only uses the ratchet when oil pressure is not present in the tensioner. Therefore the tension only fails after the car stands for a while turned off. Then when you start it the tension is slack due to the weak ratchet design. The chain jumps a few teeth. The oil pressure builds. The chain tentions with oil pressure. The ecu trys to keep the car running by playing with cam timing and in the process the engine makes metal on metal contact. Pistons meet valves and a number of other issues if your really unluckie.
VWgmbh know theres an issue its why when they see the engine code for mismatched timing they supply a new engine free of charge without argument.
What the issue then is which is the not nice part is VWuk and their dealers charge for fitting and could be 2k most have got this down to around 500 with so called good will HA! But thats still alot for something thats down to a badly designed weak weak part ie a design issue!
As for the question about what tensioner will be used to fix a car. ]tensioner supplied now HAS to be the latest one as the parts disc states in red to never use the old part even if in stock. In ither words they know there an issue too!
The way Im looking at it is if it was a mk5 I would have had to pay for a cambelt change after 4 years. Paying a specialist similar money to change the chain tensioner isnt too much of a hardship. Ill just have to get my ass into gear and get it done.
Ps I just read above the comment about frequent oil changes helping. This is untrue. Its the mechanical ratched the tensioner drops back onto when the car is turned off and oil pressure falls off. Its the ratchet part that fails nothing to do with oil or oil quality.
