FossilWorks

In my experience with this issue, a garage will go as far as plugging an OBD / fault reader in, and if that doesn't show an issue, they won't look any further. I had two garages do this, even when I told them I suspected the spark plugs to be the issue, based on these forum threads. When I spoke to a main dealer, describing symptoms and my suspected cause, they said it couldn't possibly be that, and wanted me to get a full clutch replacement for about £4000. Realistically, if you're taking the spark plugs out to inspect them, it's probably easier to put new ones in than the originals. They might be hesitant to do so without good cause. I'll be honest I'm still not completely certain why the sparks, leading to an intermittent misfire ends up causing issues with the ESC, but hey. I can see why garages are sceptical to just replace them if they're within life expectancy. If you can't remember when you last had sparks (and or leads) changed. Or if they were over 10,000 miles / maybe 2 years ago, it's probably fair to get them replaced, they're not too expensive. I'd be surprised if a garage charged more than about £200 for parts and labour, and worst case you've only replaced a maintenance part a bit sooner than necessary. Mine showed some signs of corrosion, presumably from water getting in the seal around the coils, so even if the car has been sat, they could be a little worse for wear. The symptoms sound very similar to my issue, resolved as above. But I'm aware describing snatching, juddering and skipping is all very vague and quite hard to check if we mean the same feeling. My OBD only showed an error when the EPC light was on. As soon as I turned the car off for a while and let the EPC light go off, the OBD didn't show a code anymore. I'll also add, I separately was running an experiment running both E95 and E99 for prolonged periods (3 months alternating periods, about 4000 miles a pop) to check fuel economy, and found it made absolutely zero difference to the symptoms while I had this. In terms of safety, on the two occasions the EPC light came on, I just drove it home / to the next services and no further before turning off, letting it reset and carrying on, albeit cautiously with the accelerator. I don't think it'll be fatal, but you definitely lose all ability to accelerate, which was not ideal.

Digging up an old thread here, but I'm facing the exact same issue and symptoms. If it possible to repair the column switch, or only replace it? It's quite an expensive part to write off over what I presume is just some dodgy contacts, especially for the 1.2TSI elegance with cruise control - £120 part + from a quick glance, plus some confusion over exactly which part number I need and the risk of buying the wrong one. Has anyone had any luck at trying to clean / repair the contacts in the existing one? Or alternatively, what are people's thoughts on bypassing the dip switch entirely, and maybe just putting a dedicated switch on the dash or something? Would it be possible to isolate this control from the main beams? Does it even need to be mutually exclusive? Would the car suffer any consequences if both full and dipped beams were on at the same time, retaining full beam control through the old column switch, and dipped beam via a dash mounted switch? I have no idea if the power draw would be too great, or the light perhaps too blinding.

Digging up an old thread here, but I'm facing the exact same issue and symptoms. If it possible to repair the column switch, or only replace it? It's quite an expensive part to write off over what I presume is just some dodgy contacts, especially for the 1.2TSI elegance with cruise control - £120 part + from a quick glance, plus some confusion over exactly which part number I need and the risk of buying the wrong one. Has anyone had any luck at trying to clean / repair the contacts in the existing one? Or alternatively, what are people's thoughts on bypassing the dip switch entirely, and maybe just putting a dedicated switch on the dash or something? Would it be possible to isolate this control from the main beams? Does it even need to be mutually exclusive? Would the car suffer any consequences if both full and dipped beams were on at the same time, retaining full beam control through the old column switch, and dipped beam via a dash mounted switch? I have no idea if the power draw would be too great, or the light perhaps too blinding.

Following the above, outcomes for changing sparks and HT leads (but not the coil pack). It seems to have completely resolved the issue. All symptoms of juddering under acceleration have now gone, tested both with hard acceleration in low gears, and the typical higher speed, higher gear acceleration that first presented the issue. The sparks in my Cylinder 1 (the one misfiring with error code P0301) looked gopping. I think the coil had been poorly inserted with some signs of water damage and corrosion on the exterior face, and the spark prongs (if that's the word for the bits the spark gaps across) were pretty heavily eroded. These had apparently been replaced about 3 years ago, and done about 16000 miles, I'm not sure if the condition matches that description. Similar external corrosion on my cylinder 4 too but the spark gap looked a little less grimey. Leads (with coils attached) seemed to be in good shape, but these were cheap enough to replace, and had been installed fairly poorly in the first place, with rubber seals at both ends bunched and degraded. NGK set was about £45 on Amazon. Image above showing the old leads in place before removing. I would absolutely recommend using one of this type of coil puller (below). This is the one you need for the Tsi engines with coils attached to the leads - Like my MK2 Fabia 1.2Tsi . I managed to get my old coils out with some plumbers pliers, which definitely damaged them, but I didn't care as I was replacing them anyway. Having the below puller would have made it much easier, and far easier to insert the new coils in afterwards too - they're pretty firm to push in and hard to hold secure and straight. These are about £4.99 on eBay, but mine got lost by Royal Mail. All in all, managed to get 4 NGK spark plugs and a new set of leads for £90. Took about 30 mins to replace, with a clean in between to get any bits of debris out of the spark plug recesses (and a lot of dead wasps for some reason). I didn't replace the coil pack that sits on top of the engine, and it seems to work fine without a new one. No more juddering, no more error codes. The coil pack would have been about other £80 or so, maybe £65 on a good deal, but this is easier to access and I'll change at a later date if I have to. As a weird side note, my car had also recently been showing some strange things on the dashboard whenever the lights were on. When the headlights (but not the DRLs) were on, the Tyre Pressure Warning light was very dimly lit, only noticeable in the dark. It would not be lit whenever the dashboard or exterior lights were off. If any light on the dashboard was present (parking brake, seatbelt, etc) so too was the ominous orange glow from the TPI light. I took this to the garage too, but they couldn't identify. I'd also see the washer fluid warning light flash very dimly whenever indicating left. I originally thought this could just be light from adjacent parts of the dash bleeding through, but replacing the sparks and leads seems to have fixed this. I may have been getting some shorting or minor electrical inference, but no more. Hopefully this is useful to someone. From the various forums I've searched this seems to be a common occurrence across a lot of Tsi engines across the whole VW group range.

Following the above, outcomes for changing sparks and HT leads (but not the coil pack). It seems to have completely resolved the issue. All symptoms of juddering under acceleration have now gone, tested both with hard acceleration in low gears, and the typical higher speed, higher gear acceleration that first presented the issue. The sparks in my Cylinder 1 (the one misfiring with error code P0301) looked gopping. I think the coil had been poorly inserted with some signs of water damage and corrosion on the exterior face, and the spark prongs (if that's the word for the bits the spark gaps across) were pretty heavily eroded. These had apparently been replaced about 3 years ago, and done about 16000 miles, I'm not sure if the condition matches that description. Similar external corrosion on my cylinder 4 too but the spark gap looked a little less grimey. Leads (with coils attached) seemed to be in good shape, but these were cheap enough to replace, and had been installed fairly poorly in the first place, with rubber seals at both ends bunched and degraded. NGK set was about £45 on Amazon. Image above showing the old leads in place before removing. I would absolutely recommend using one of this type of coil puller (below). This is the one you need for the Tsi engines with coils attached to the leads - Like my MK2 Fabia 1.2Tsi . I managed to get my old coils out with some plumbers pliers, which definitely damaged them, but I didn't care as I was replacing them anyway. Having the below puller would have made it much easier, and far easier to insert the new coils in afterwards too - they're pretty firm to push in and hard to hold secure and straight. These are about £4.99 on eBay, but mine got lost by Royal Mail. All in all, managed to get 4 NGK spark plugs and a new set of leads for £90. Took about 30 mins to replace, with a clean in between to get any bits of debris out of the spark plug recesses (and a lot of dead wasps for some reason). I didn't replace the coil pack that sits on top of the engine, and it seems to work fine without a new one. No more juddering, no more error codes. The coil pack would have been about other £80 or so, maybe £65 on a good deal, but this is easier to access and I'll change at a later date if I have to. As a weird side note, my car had also recently been showing some strange things on the dashboard whenever the lights were on. When the headlights (but not the DRLs) were on, the Tyre Pressure Warning light was very dimly lit, only noticeable in the dark. It would not be lit whenever the dashboard or exterior lights were off. If any light on the dashboard was present (parking brake, seatbelt, etc) so too was the ominous orange glow from the TPI light. I took this to the garage too, but they couldn't identify. I'd also see the washer fluid warning light flash very dimly whenever indicating left. I originally thought this could just be light from adjacent parts of the dash bleeding through, but replacing the sparks and leads seems to have fixed this. I may have been getting some shorting or minor electrical inference, but no more. Hopefully this is useful to someone. From the various forums I've searched this seems to be a common occurrence across a lot of Tsi engines across the whole VW group range.

Also referenced here, as these threads seem to cover the same issue: ht/#findComment-5925893 Jumping in on this thread, as it predicted the error I found and am now attempting to Resolve. I started experiencing symptoms of this problem about 9000 miles before any error codes started to appear, so maybe this could help inform someone who's just starting to come across the issue. Situation: 2014 Fabia MK2 Tsi juddering or skipping when accelerating. Purchased from a local dealer about a year ago with just over 62000 miles and a solid service history, including sparks that are technically within expected lifespan. The car exhibited small amounts of skipping / juddering / momentary loss of power when accelerating hard under load, at higher speeds (accelerating to overtake, joining motorway slip roads etc). Infrequent at first, but over the next 10,000 miles progressed to become pretty much guaranteed when hitting the above scenarios. Two local "Skoda specialist" garages failed to even replicate the issue, or diagnose but still charged for the privilege. I called two main dealers who advised it wasn't worth their time and this wouldn't be the result of sparks or ignition, presumably trying to upsell me work on a clutch or the ESC control system. About 1000 miles ago, one of these judders was much more substantial, and up came the ESC error, EPC light and traction warning light came on and the engine completely locked down all power just as I pulled onto the motorway. Turning the car on and off when I was able to pull over resolved the issue. Plugging an OBD into the car the next day revealed no errors. Fast forward to this week, similar occurrence overtaking a Truck on the M3, pulled into fleet services. Car was juddering even while idle, and plugging the OBD in before turning the car off revealed the P0301 cylinder 1 misfire error, as this forum thread, and the cited one (http://briskoda.net/forums/topic/501916-stabalisation-control-esc-and-engine-shaking) also suggests. Action: Now I have confirmed diagnosis, I'm going to go ahead with replacing sparks, ignition leads, and then potentially the Coil Pack. This configuration is different to the non-Tsi engines (with only three cylinders), and there seems to be some misdirected advice on various forums, as many engines seem to have coils and leads separate. I'll change just the four sparks and ignition leads first to see if this resolves the issue (also should only cost less than £90 for NGK parts). If the issue persists, I will also replace the coil pack, but this is more expensive and I'm hoping that it's a few steps removed from the problem. Outcome: I'll add an update if this issue can be resolved just through sparks and leads.

Jumping in on this thread, as it predicted the error I found and am now attempting to Resolve. I started experiencing symptoms of this problem about 9000 miles before any error codes started to appear, so maybe this could help inform someone who's just starting to come across the issue. Situation: 2014 Fabia MK2 Tsi juddering or skipping when accelerating. Purchased from a local dealer about a year ago with just over 62000 miles and a solid service history, including sparks that are technically within expected lifespan. The car exhibited small amounts of skipping / juddering / momentary loss of power when accelerating hard under load, at higher speeds (accelerating to overtake, joining motorway slip roads etc). Infrequent at first, but over the next 10,000 miles progressed to become pretty much guaranteed when hitting the above scenarios. Two local "Skoda specialist" garages failed to even replicate the issue, or diagnose but still charged for the privilege. I called two main dealers who advised it wasn't worth their time and this wouldn't be the result of sparks or ignition, presumably trying to upsell me work on a clutch or the ESC control system. About 1000 miles ago, one of these judders was much more substantial, and up came the ESC error, EPC light and traction warning light came on and the engine completely locked down all power just as I pulled onto the motorway. Turning the car on and off when I was able to pull over resolved the issue. Plugging an OBD into the car the next day revealed no errors. Fast forward to this week, similar occurrence overtaking a Truck on the M3, pulled into fleet services. Car was juddering even while idle, and plugging the OBD in before turning the car off revealed the P0301 cylinder 1 misfire error, as this forum thread, and the cited one (http://briskoda.net/forums/topic/501916-stabalisation-control-esc-and-engine-shaking) also suggests. Action: Now I have confirmed diagnosis, I'm going to go ahead with replacing sparks, ignition leads, and then potentially the Coil Pack. This configuration is different to the non-Tsi engines (with only three cylinders), and there seems to be some misdirected advice on various forums, as many engines seem to have coils and leads separate. I'll change just the four sparks and ignition leads first to see if this resolves the issue (also should only cost less than £90 for NGK parts). If the issue persists, I will also replace the coil pack, but this is more expensive and I'm hoping that it's a few steps removed from the problem. Outcome: I'll add an update if this issue can be resolved just through sparks and leads.