What does labouring an engine mean, how do you know if you are labouring the engine and what damage does it cause?

Say your going up a hill in 5th, you put your footdown and the engine doesn't respond but starts to judder if your low enough in the revvs or under the powerband.

Not really sure what the skoda's are like for this but for example if i put my car into 6th at 40mph and went up a slight incline the engine would judder slightly.

Edited 23 November, 201015 yr by Liam-6

Basically low revs - and lots of strain on the engine. E.g. towing something and only pulling it using a 1000 rev's of power, in-appropriate gear for a hill etc.

and what damage does it cause?

Excessive wear on crankshaft, flywheel -- DMFs are supposedly really susceptible to low frequency vibration, there's a school of thought that says if you've a DMF (who doesn't these days ) you should start the engine with the clutch depressed. Clutch suffers slightly too, but the big one apart from the crank is the gearbox.

All expensive parts so not worth it even if only one of them dies early.

If the engine runs at low revs under load it will 'pulse' more which puts lots of strain on the dual mass flywheel which is there to smooth out the pulsing effect of a diesel engine.

On a TDI, any situation where the turbo cannot spool up when your foot is to the floor is most likely causing the engine to labour.

Both our Yeti TSI and Superb TDI can't start unless the clutch is depressed. I was always taught to start a car with the clutch pedal depressed. Its common sense.

I asked about this on another forum, as I have a Superb Greenline with the 1.9 PD TDI 105ps engine. The car is much longer geared than the standard cars, and has an economy remap from factory etc. The gear shift indicator leaves me running at around 1,100rpm to 1,300rpm at any given time unless I'm at NSL (in which case it's 1,900rpm at 70mph in fifth gear). To my mind, while the economy is good and I only use the higher gear (very low revs) once at a 'cruise' on level ground, the OBC would have me shift to 4th at a hair over 30mph - even uphill.

While it seems to drive smoothly and has plenty of torque style pull from these low revs, when you put your foot down (eg at a speed limit increase) it takes a good while to pick up and the turbo is almost another 1,000rpm away from kicking in - so you need to change down to accelerate. Surely that's not good for the engine? It doesn't judder at those revs, but it does sound more 'bassy' and 'chuggy' when you first change up.

I tend to ignore the OBC/shift indicator and cruise in 3rd at 30 unless I'm on a nice flat stretch and doing a 'decent' 30mph. In that case the revs are around 1,300rpm and just enough for the engine not to sound like it's struggling. On the one hand I'd imagine Skoda know their car better than I do, and wouldn't advise these revs if they were damaging to the car, but on the other hand it does feel rather contrary to previous experience (where I'd generally cruise closer to 1,600 revs).

Does anybody have any thoughts or advice on this? TIA.