53 Plate 1.2 Polo 3 cylinder - Engine not starting

[scottpa100]

Hi guys and gals.

A tale of woe here.... My girlfriend was in heavy traffic and received a bump to the rear of her car. She's okay and the car has gone in for repair. It was just cosmetic as it was super low impace and very low speed and we thought it be for the bumper and maybe suports under the numper.

Now... it turns out the garage did a front realignment and since then the car won't start. Fine, left it with them. We've chased it up again 5 days later having heard nothing and they're saying that the problem is caused by a cog in the engine. They said that "...one of the cogs had a design flaw originally, was resolved in some later models but obviously the problem (VW's) is still outstanding."

Now - I personally think they are using some smoke and mirrors to confuse us two! But I've done some digging around and I found this on Yahoo answers about 1.2 3-cylinder engines and I'm wondering if there is any truth in it?

From the article on Yahoo, I can see that very specific codes can come out telling them that certain cylinders have failed. With the garage saying about the cog, the P0341 error about Camshafts seem quite specific.

Is the garage trying to confuse us, they say that they've had a proper VW dealership person there and if so, I'm assuming they know what to fix because it seems the codes are very specific.... so perhaps they're just lying?!!


I've waffled on - I'm just after a second opinion. If anyone knows any killer questions we can ask the garage (Nationwide Crash Repair) to help us nail where the problem it really would be very much appreciated.

Thanks for reading.


Scott

[vc-10]

I've heard about it skipping teeth, apparently there's a new, longer spacer that helps. I've only heard of it doing this when started after an oil change- something about the spacer/guide thing not being pressurised by the oil and therefore letting the chain get very slack. I'd have thought it would make horrendous noises if it did jump, as the valves would be hitting the tops of the pistons. At any rate,as the car was absolutely fine before the incident then surely any problems would be covered by insurance- either yours if it was due to the crash, or Nationwide's if they effectively broke your car. When VW somehow managed to damage the exhaust on my car they replaced it for free- I'd expect any company to do the same.
The most important thing though, is that your girlfriend is OK!

[Crasher]

The cam chain jumping on the 3 cylinder 12 valve for no reason is very common, it will need striping down and a new chain and tensioner set fitting together with a modified guide and the removal of the top guide (on the 12 valve engine). Then it may run OK but it may have bent a valve, there is only one way to find out…