Porsche Enthusiasts Club Forum

A tale of woe and a plea for help and guidance

We bought a brand new 1.2 Polo from VW Inchcape in September 2012 and it has been serviced annually by them and nowhere else. It has done around 40,000 miles give or take a touch and it failed to start one morning last week.

We had it transported in to VW for them to investigate and £340 later it seems the timing chain has stretched and effectively written off the engine. I find a failure of such catastrophic nature on such a young and low mileage car to be unacceptable yet VW seem to think we should cough up most if not all of the £7k it may need for a new engine. A bit crap on a car only worth £6k before the issue arose!

I believe a service bulletin was issued about the chain tensioners on pre 2013 cars but this may only have been in the US, South Africa and Australia and I understand the directive to have been to change the tensioners by "stealth" when cars came in to dealers for service.... can find much more on this item as yet.

Given the timing chain is a non service item, does anyone know what comeback or challenges we may have to VW.

I am awaiting a meeting with the Dealer Principal and will be taking it further with Inchcape and VW UK but thought I would ask if anyone out there knows of any answers.

Have a good read of the sales of goods act, paying a lot of attention to the part about the product lasting a reasonable amount of time. 4 years and 40k miles is not reasonable so that's where I would start. Good luck with it.

+1. It is definitely not reasonable and the sale of goods act says it should be. On the other hand, I'm not sure how reasonable it is for them to replace the engine at their cost as you've effectively got a new engine for free i.e. you have made a gain. Suggest that if you don't get what you want, you should tell them you'll take legal advice, them follow that up.

Best of luck.

Thank you for the replies and suggestions, all very helpful indeed and I am most grateful

This does seem to be a known "fault" that VW rectified post 2013 and I cant see any published recalls and we certainly hadn't received any from them. My thoughts from a consumer point of view are that the chain was not fit for purpose from the outset and therefore the goods were not as described or performed as could be reasonably expected in normal usage.

They have confirmed the chain has stretched and having reset the timing they undertook a compression test which gave a zero bar reading on all cylinders - all valves are leaking when closed. From this they deduced that valves and pistons have come together. They have said they will need to strip the head to confirm this which could be a bill of up to £1000 which I have questioned in the strongest possible terms as we're already £340 in for them to check the chain and do the compression tests. To my mind, £1000 to strip the head of a 3 cylinder Polo is taking the proverbial but I remain calm and collected but firm with them.

I have remained calm, polite and professional in my dealings with VW so far and where possible I have aimed to talk turkey on a face to face basis rather than over email or phones. I find face to face usually gets the best results out of people. In fairness to the service staff at VW, they have afforded me the same courtesy.

I have requested the name and contact details for the perons(s) the dealer principal is responsible to both at Inchcape and at VW UK and in the absence of the service team coming up with a solution I have said I will need a meeting with the dealer principal as the next step.

I am happy to allow them to make whatever enquiries they need to with Inchcape and VW UK to offer me an acceptable solution. If there isn't an acceptable solution from them, I will need to turn up the heat with some of the suggestions given.

I have some sterling legal minds behind me if needed!

Will keep you posted.

Have you paid the £340 or is it a bill at the moment? If you haven't paid yet I would suggest you don't, especially if they have the car. I'd be very interested in how this progresses so please do keep us informed.

It's just a bill at the minute, they have our car and we have their courtesy car....

I'll keep you all posted on progress.

Timing chains going on moderns is nothing new.

The R56 Mini Cooper Ss are known for the chains rattling. I know of 2 that have had their chains changed and are rattling again. Whether a genuine chain was used or pattern one I do not know ; I know both got them changed on the 'cheap'.

As for the N47 engine in the BMWs don't ask. Shorter service intervals are meant to help the matter.

I could carry on mind you with Saab/GM EcoTec engines.

Without falling on my own sword we have a Mk3 Mondeo with the Duratec HE 1.8 engine on 320,000 miles, still on its original chain. It has always had an oil change at 10k mind you. Before this we had a 2.0 derivate many moons ago, which went to 380k on its original chain.

So, an update from VW today - of the circa £7k or so cost to install the new engine they have agreed that between the Dealer, Inchcape and VW UK they will cover the whole cost bar £990 that we will have to contribute and they will include a new 2 year warranty on the engine.

Personally, from reading the woes of other owners who have suffered a similar fate with timing chains and tensioners on these MY09 to MY12 engines, this is as good an outcome as could have been expected.

We should have the car back in the next week or so.

Sounds reasonable, well done.

I bet you're very pleased. Nice to hear of a good outcome.

It's certainly a better outcome that most have had on this issue!

Frustrating thing is, they still did the full service it was booked in for on the old knackered engine.... Fluids, filters, plugs.... and they want me to pay for that service

Tell them to go forth and multiply. That engine is knackered and surely they knew that?!?