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Thanks for this mate, really appreciate the detailed reply! And yep, thinking back there was the tiniest noise on cold start every now and then, basically since I owned it, and an engine warning light on the dash for the last couple weeks. It was booked in for a full service last friday, and I think my (misplaced) confidence in its ability to make it to the service was because I had a mechanic come to look at it when I bought it and he did all the electrical diagnostics and had no worrying messages in the car's log etc. But, it's a lesson, and at least it happened on a £3k car rather than a more expensive one. Living and learning.
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Your engine light was probably a floating code for ignition/cam/crank timing being out a small amount which is a moderate warning sign you've got a worn timing chain, tensioner and or guides.
Beware on VW and other brands, unless you have a proper code reader than can interrogate the modules properly, generic (even expensive £4k+ machines) will not pick up the detail codes, so floating codes that don't have a high tier priority (and are stored) won't even flag up, even if they are looking for them. If you buy another VAG product, buy VAG-COM or OBDeleven, few hundred quid that pays for itself the first time you've had to avoid going to a main dealer for a code look-up.
BrickMan
Timing chains are mean't to last forever but they rarely do. Because on most cars they aren't in the service book as an item that needs attention at a certain mileage or age, folk just ignore them. Main reason they fail is incorrect oil change spec and duration, or millions of stop start cycles due to S/S implented on engines. Timing chain gets a lot of stick as the engine starts obviously, so city cars with lower mileage tend to fail sooner than cars with higher main road mileage (less starts and stops).
THey will often give a small noise on cold start as a symptom that the tensioner or guide rails are nearing end of life, and I've heard that noise on loads of VAG cars with the 1.0 and 1.4 tsi engine in them. Neighbours seat ibiza with that engine failed at under 40k miles, despite perfect history and they'd owned it from new. Heard the noise a few months ago, warned them to get it looked at, they just looked at me like I'd shat in their cornflakes, unfortunately I was right and it failed a few weeks later when they tried to drive home from work. 2017 car though so worth putting another engine in it or rebuild*
*You will find the UK is now pretty much devoid of any proper vehicle engineering shops that undertake partial engine rebuilds following cam/chain timing failure or even cylinder head rebuilds. I tend to run older cars, and even 5 years ago you had a few places that would rebuild a cylinder head if you whipped it off and dropped it in with them along with the specs. But now, yeah hardly anywhere does it. Folk tend to just slot a scrap/used engine in, but even that style of repair is falling away now as real scrap yards that will sell you parts or an engine are very very rare.
You paid £3k for it and only got a few months, would unfortunately say you are just very unlucky, but yes your basically stuck with a rolling shell of a car that needs a scrap engine fitted. Say engine is £500-900 if you can even find one. Labour SHOULDN'T be that bad, its a days work so say £300-550 + VAT depending where you are at. But its also a days labour to remove the donor engine unless provided on a pallet. Carries risk that the replacement engine has issues though, or will experience same issue soon after.
Just don't buy a GM/Vauxhall astra/corsa or similar with the 1.0, 1.2 or I think even the 1.4 petrol engine? Not a single one of them still works after about 6 years old, they ALL die from timing chain failure in one mode or another, zero available in scrap because thats why they are all there. Shame as the older version of that engine from years before was totally fine and known to be crazy reliable.