Hi Guys
I'm a newbee on here, but have been lurking for a while

This thread has been very useful to me as well.
I've a Dec 09 car with 33k on the clock and i've owned it for 9 months, in that time it has never missed a beat and has been great (i've had a mk2 and mk4 before) The car didn't have a full VAG history, but did have a full history at a local garage, it was the spec i was looking for so i bought it anyway, I checked it out myself and found everything to be as it should be.
My Local VW garage (Hawco, Peterhead) has looked after my previous ones (despite me being a mechanic

) so i'm happy with their service and skills. So naturally i booked the car in to them for its annual service.
Imagine my surprise when they phoned me to say they had the Camshaft and Crankshaft warnings come up on the Diagnostics and that with the computer disconnected the car now had its management light on and wouldn't start. So i got the same tale about Tensioners that you have discussing on here, they said VW goodwill would cover 100% of the parts and 30% of the labour to change the tensioner and quoted £145 inc.vat for the job. This was step one! i left them the car and got a nice wee Polo courtesy car (given this was unexpected i thought that was good service as you usually have to pre-book a courtesy car)
Anyway as the week went on it turned out the Tensioner hadn't completely failed but had been erratic enough for the chain to start eating the casing, which had put metal through the engine, when they dropped the sump it was full of particles so they are Changing the Engine and all the associated components that use the sump oil. I should be getting the car back tomorrow (3 1/2 weeks later) and the Cost to me is to be £965 incl VAT.
I agree that given it is a known problem then paying for it hurts a bit, but i'm also getting a complete new engine for just under a grand on a car that is out of warranty and until now, hasn't been maintained by VW. On the whole I'm very happy with the outcome and with the service but i would have expected the underlying issue to have been a recall.
For anyone with an 09/10 TSI engine it has to be worth getting the Tensioner replaced, but surely if VAG quoted the 100% on parts and 30% on labour giving the £145 quote for the job, then you should be trying to get it under those terms, it has to be worth it for VAG as well as it saves them the cost of the engine.
Looking forward to getting my baby back

Cheers
Sandy