Had that engine in an Octavia vRS about a year ago. Read up on them before hand and bought a full history (mind you the same dealer sold my no-history trade in as full history too), low owner, just over 100k miles.
Engine rattles on idle – don’t worry they all do that
Engine doesn’t really get much better with revs – don’t worry they all do that
Uses a bit of oil – don’t worry they all do that
Then when filling the car with oil (did an oil change fairly quickly as quality of previous stuff unknown) noticed that the oil filler cap was covered in mayo – again internet/forums tells me not to worry they have the tendency to do that if moved around from cold, like on a forecourt for a few months.
Then the engine management light came on at high revs, read the fault code (cam sensor) and reset it, a month to six weeks of problem free motoring (apart from the back box falling off and being cheaper to buy a custom s/s replacement) then the management light pops on again. Perfect mountain biking wagon and I’m going to keep this for a while so put it into Skoda for a service and to investigate the EML. They come back with a list as long as my arm, the main thing was replacing the cam sensor, and the cam chain while they were in there plus another few biggies. Just to fix the main issues was going to be £2k (£1200ish at an Indie) with no guarantee it would cure the issue. Traded it in fairly quickly.
Long story short, it was far from an impressive engine that didn’t seem worth chasing all the issues on. Would not buy another, did pull nicely but a performance engine shouldn’t sound like that.
