Not all A cams are soft, it was the later batch which there was an issue with and so had a recall on - if you have an A cam but not in the recall list it will be ok - I looked into this before swapping mine.
Thanks for all the info Robin, although an expense at least its now sorted. I will speak to JKM regarding your logs and look forward to your pics etc.
Regarding your turbo I meant if you sold as-is and then someone else then got it refurbed .. but like you say it might not be much different that getting an exchange unit from VW - hopefully the let you do an advance exchange. Also again like you said warranty might not count