Noisy Air Con compressor or is it DSG?

[Medway]

Hello,

The engine of my MK5 R32 has always been much noisier than I thought it should be, but recently I've come to the conclusion that it's been getting louder.

I'm obviously no genius when it comes to engines, but I've noticed that when the air con is on, there is an annoyingly loud rattle coming from the engine bay while the DSG is in park or neutral. I turn the air con off, the rattle nearly stops. However, when I select 'D', the rattle disappears completely. The noise also completely disappears when the air con is working and I put it in gear, so I'm wondering that it could be the gear box and the loudening noise could be due to a slight change in engine speed???

Now, the air conditioning is working fine as it gets a good workout every day in the near 50 Degree heat of the Middle East. With regards to the DSG, that seems to be fine too with smooth gear changes in all modes. So apart from the annoyingly loud rattle, the car seems to be working as it should.

I initially took the car to the VW service centre about a year ago complaining about the rattle, and since then it has also been in for a service. Both times I've had the same reply from the tech bod, "It's a highly tuned engine Sir, they all sound like this...". I reckon boll*x, but with the R32 being extremely rare here in Qatar I've not had a chance to listen to another one myself.

Has anyone else had a similar issue with an annoying noise?

I've had the car for 18 months now and until now it's given me no trouble at all. As you can probably tell, the VW dealership/service is not exactly the best. Not only is there a slight language barrier but they don't seem to be too clued up on the R32's which leaves me quite frustrated at times, but of course, I knew that would be the case when I bought the car.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Cheers!