Hi all. I am a new Gti owner.
Welcome to the club!
Mk5 with 43000 miles and was 1 owner from new. Been maintained by vw dealers always according to all the bills.
That is potentially exceedingly worrying!
Please tell us which VW stealer(s)
are guilty did the work. Do a search on this forum, and other similar forums - specifically for the correct compliance with using only 504.00 LongLife III oils. There were many reports of incompetent VW stealers - specifically on two issues. The first was that they were inappropriately coding GTIs onto the LongLife (LL) servicing regime (and if a GTI is driven as designed - is wholly inappropriate for LL servicing). The second is that the stealers were NOT using the correct oil - even if a GTI (or indeed any VAG car after 2008) is coded for the shorter Time & Distance (T&D) servicing regime - they MUST (with only three very specific exceptions) only use 504.00/507.00 LongLife III spec oils.
There were some real horror stories published on this very forum about gross negligence and blatant incompetence regarding wholly inappropriate oils!
Runs fantastic it really does.
As they usually do!
I was looking through all the bills and seen it had a camshaft failure and chain at 31000 miles so I would have thought this would be down to the cam follower issue maybe but it cost the original owner 1850 quid lol.
If that is genuine mileage, then your GTI has either been seriously abused by its previous owner, and/or not been maintained correctly. I suspect it was on the LongLife service regime, and no doubt had incorrect oil.
The 'cam follower issue' wasn't the cams/followers which operate the valves - it was specifically the bi-lobe cam and bucket follower for the FSI high-pressure fuel pump. Unfortunately, even this latter issue was blown out of reality by a bunch of stupid idiots on another forum. On my own GTI (owned since new in 2006!) - I have only once replaced the HPFP follower, as a precautionary measure, at 100k miles!
That was 12000 miles ago and I just bought it at 43000 miles. Should I be worried about the cam follower or not as yet.
The most important things you need to worry about are: its previous and current service regimes, the type of oil previously used, and ensuring the CORRECT oil is only used in the future, and most crucially of all - do NOT abuse the engine until it is at the correct operating temperature!
It had a oil service at 39000 but when I bought it was at minimum on dipstick but I topped it up with 5w 40 fully synthetic but will change the oil soon anyway. Any recommendations? Brand.
Hope to get some good replies and great to be a member of the forum.
5w40 is categorically the WRONG oil. You must only use an oil approved to VW 504.00, and even then, only go for a high quality premium brand oil - such as Castrol or Shell (and definately not Fuchs or LiquiMoly).
HTH