Hi, I have a 2001 beetle 2.0 turbo. Sometimes after the engine is warmed up and your sitting at an idle , it sounds like the lifters are making alot of noise until you rev it back up. It will continue to do this until the engine has cooled back down. I was told this could be the turbo , so I had the turbo rebuilt. It seemed to solve the problem for a few hundred miles , now it's doing this again. It only does this intermediately , sometimes I drive around for an hour or so and it never does this. Sometimes it makes this sound for a little bit and then it goes away. Could this be the sign of a weak oil pump or weak valve spring? It only does this occasionally. I raised the hood and it's definitely an engine noise , not something loose rattling around. Has anyone else had any problems like this? Thank for your time and replies!

 

I have a 2001 1.8t beetle and i have had the same problem. I hate to hear that you had the turbo rebuilt, because more than likely it wasn't that especially since it still happens after the rebuild. Here is the problem with my car and i'm assuming its the same for you. The timing belt runs the intake cam, the exhaust cam is operated by a timing chain which runs between the intake and exhaust cams on the back of the motor. In between the two cams is a tensioner which expands and contracts to control the variable timing on exhaust cam. The tensioner operates on oil pressure so when the motor is warmed up and the oil is thinned out the oil pressure is lower at idle so a weak tensioner doesn't provide enough tension and allows that chain to slap around in there. I replaced the oil pickup up unit in my oil pan since i thought that might have been contributing to low oil pressure. That helped but I still had to get that tensioner replaced as well.