On a 4L Q7 with the same engine, starter replacement is 4hrs labour, it's unlikely to be any more on a D3. The labour on pulling an engine on a D3 could be more than half the value of the car. Unless the car is worth big money, I wouldn't touch the chains. I had timing chain rattle from 160K miles onward. I changed the car just past 230K miles and the rattle hadn't got any worse to be honest. My D3 was an 04 with an ASB engine code and had oil changed every 10K miles from new.
It's very rare that the timing chains cause a catastrophic engine issue, they would normally just get noisier, changes would stretch etc.
The rattle you have at idle could also be tappets. What sort of miles are you at ?
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