Fabia vRS stutter (no, not that stutter, a totally different one!)

[Chelle]

Hi Folks, I'm new to posting on these forums so please be gentle!

I've searched for similar issues and can't find anything that matches so have decided now is the time to start a thread **eek!**

Car is 53 plate Fabia vRS with 88k on clock. In 1st, 2nd and 3rd gear it will rev all the way to the red with no trouble at all (something I am not in the habit of doing!) but in 4th gear, car will stutter and hestitate at 3000rpm and more or less refuse to go any faster. In 5th gear, this happens at 2500 and in 6th around 2000.

This is generally only under acceleration as the car will cruise happily around 2000rpm in 6th as long as I don't then floor it.

I have no warning lights showing on the dash (they are all present when ignition is on so i know it's not had a dodgy 'black tape over the bulb' fix) and my boyfriend has hooked it up to his Solus Pro computer and found no faults. He's even had it hooked up while I drove it and got it to stutter and it still showed nothing out of the ordinary!

My boyfriend is a mechanic but unfortunately specialises in Subarus so has little knowledge of (or interest in) my litte yellow soot chucker :( Don't get me wrong, he does a cracking job with servicing it and general mechanical repairs like changing wheel bearings, drop links etc etc but this issue has him stumped.

After many hours searching the internet, I'm starting to wonder if the lift pump in the tank could be faulty (does the fabia even have a lift pump?), leaving only the injector pumps to pull up the fuel which would maybe explain why I only get the problem under acceleration but I'm really just guessing here.

As I drive the car pretty sensibly most of the time, the stuttering doesn't really cause me a great deal of grief. But still, I would like to know what it is and hopefully get it fixed!!

Any suggestions gratefully received, thanks for taking the time to help me out

Chelle

[Desert Varnish]

Sounds like MAF associated limp mode...until I read you have hooked it up to diagnostics and it didn't show a fault code (which it would) :/

[mattievrs]

Sounds like the fuel filter has collapsed, had the exact same symptoms and a new filter sorted it.

[Stormchaser]

Its a 53 plate so obviously won,t have the "BLT stutter".

I would also check/replace fuel filter first.

[Tigger_1979]

Try a tank of v power, it could be your injectors need cleaning. Does this happen all the time or intermittent

Edited 13 March, 2012 by Tigger_1979

[Chelle]

Hi folks, thanks for the replies and sorry for the late response!

I was suspicious it might be the fuel filter too as I was bad for running the car on supermarket diesel (not now, I now actually go out of my way to find a brand name petrol station) but I've carried out a full service including fuel filter and the problem is unchanged. I was a wee bit overdue with the service (I did the oil change on time but was a bit busy, so the rest of the service got postponed and before I knew it a few 1000 more miles had magically appeared on the clock!). Could it be that the filter had collapsed and some bits of it are still kicking about?

I serviced the car when I first bought it and I know the problem was not there then. I'm sure the problem first started before the second service was overdue though.

Yes, I had been thinking of giving it a tank of v power so I'll give that a bash and let you know if it helps. Does anyone have any experience of using fuel additives to clean out the system? If it's worth a shot I'm up for trying it.

Tigger, the problem did not at first appear to be intermittent but a couple of weeks ago I was giving the car a bit of a dig and looked down and saw I was well above the 3000rpm problem zone in 4th so decided to push it and actually did manage to get all my revs. I happily thought the car had cured itself but a few days later I tried again and the problem was back. Meh!

Other than that one occassion, it has not gone away since I first noticed it.

Thanks everyone for taking time to reply, I'll report back once I've tried the V Power.

Edited 16 March, 2012 by Chelle

[Tigger_1979]

I'm getting a similar issue with a stutter, but under accelleration. I am currently trying a fuel additive Injector cleaner, which has sort of reduced the problem. When I was last running V power the problem did go away for a tank. When you get the stutter, does it go away or does it stay each time you accelerate? If it doesn't go, have you tried pulling over turning the engine off and starting again? That clears mine for a while.

Also I have noticed if I had been driving briskly I don't get the issue, but if I drive about low revving in traffic stop start for a while, then after about 30minutes the problem would appear.

An intermittent issue makes me think it's just a dirt build up. If it is a constant stutter at the same point and reproducable very easily, then you could have other issue's. Has anyone tried a vagcom scan on the car?

[Chelle]

The stutter is only under acceleration but also only at very specific revs in each gear (see original post). The car will cleanly accelerate to these revs then just stutter quite severely and not rev any higher. It is very easy to replicate and it will do it 99% of the time. I've not had a vagcom scan, do u think it would show up something the Solus Pro wouldn't? There's a Skoda dealership near me, might be worth popping in and asking them to do a scan. Is it likely to be expensive?

[Chelle]

Well as promised I'm reporting back after trying some good diesel in the car. Unfortunately there are no shell stations that stock V Power diesel within 30 miles of where I live (please correct me if I'm wrong!) So I've had to go for BP ultimate. I've run it for a tank now and while the stutter is still there, it doesn't seem as bad. Before, it would hit the stutter and go no further but now it gives a little cough and keeps pulling. I'm not sure how far it will pull tho as I haven't been able to push it due to road conditions/people in my way lol. I'm going to assume it's been a build up of crud which is getting sorted out by the decent fuel but if anyone has any further suggestions I'm all ears. Thanks again for the help :-)

[Tigger_1979]

Had a good long rant of the car last weekend, during the wsm meet, and I haven't had my stutter since. I hope it just need revvy driving to clear it out. You could try dropping a few gears and accelerate a lot see if it also helps you.

What you could do is your next motorway drive come off at each junction and drive quickly back on again.

Edited 5 April, 2012 by Tigger_1979

[chris980]

Hi Chelle,

Did you get the problem sorted? I'm having the same trouble as yours in my Seat Ibiza FR (apologies for gatecrashing, I have been googling the problem and this thread came up!).

Chris

[Tigger_1979]

I have not had a stutter since my good rant in the car 2 weeks ago. I think it just was dirty injectors for me.

[rallysnapper]

Hi,

I had this similar situation with my 54 Vrs pre BLT, I tried all different fuels thinking the injectors were faulty. In the end a friend and Skoda tech changed the wiring loom in the head and problem was solved.

[Chelle]

Hi all, I really am quite rubbish at this forum thing, I keep forgetting to come on and check for replies - sorry!

Chris, no probs with the gatecrash lol. the problem isn't fixed yet unfortunately, went back to standard shell fuel and the problem is just the same as before :-( my next try was going to be a fuel additive.

tigger, I wish I'd checked this before last weekend as I'm just back an 800 mile round trip and a few heavy blasts on the motorway might have been useful!

Rally snapper, did ur loom problem flash up any fault codes? If not, I might have to look into getting that done. I had noticed there seemed to be a common problem with the loom but I assumed it would flag up a fault code (wrongly pointing to something else).

Thanks again for the help everyone, I promise to try to check back again soon and keep on top of this!

[cjb]

I've not had a vagcom scan, do u think it would show up something the Solus Pro wouldn't?

Maybe. Look in the diag forum and find someone near you: cheaper than the dealer.

[Chelle]

Thanks very much, I'll head over there for a look right now!

[Tigger_1979]

Pop along to a few Brisky meets, there is always someone at them who would carry Vagcom and would do a free scan for you.

Or just ask nicely on here and I am sure a few Briskodians would be happy to meet you and give you a free scan.

[Chelle]

Ah you're a great bunch

I'll have a look and see where/when the next localish meet is, don't want to put someone out unless I have to!

[Tigger_1979]

Well you could take a nice weekend trip to South Wales this weekend,

http://www.briskoda.net/forums/topic/217858-south-wales-meet-2012/

:p

[JonnyBCK]

you may have the same stutter as my polo BLT which i now believe to be a fuel knock, plugged one of those snap on diagnostics tools in and read what the injectors were injecting, 2 of them were doing in the 40s and 2 were doing in the 60s not sure what its measured in maybe percent? anyway when it does this are u getting alot of black smoke out the exhaust?

[Chelle]

Tigger, I think South Wales is pushing it slightly lol. There does seem to be a west scotland run to arbroath on 27th May that I am seriously considering, would be nice to meet some of you.

Jonny, my boyfriend did something similar with the solus pro machine. There were no fault codes but we took the car a drive while it was hooked up and he checked actual readings against the expected readings. I'll need to ask him what components he was looking at though! I'm not aware of any large amounts of smoke from the exhaust but to be fair, my back window is usually manky (skoosher not working, one of a list of small things I haven't gotten round to yet!).

I do have a further development to report though. My other half took a sudden and enexpected interest in the fabia over the weekend and decided to clean out the EGR valve. I've now got 90k on the clock so as you can imagine, it was thick with black mingingness. After bringing it back to near new, he decided to attempt a home made EGR delete by making a blanking plate and bunging the vacuum hoses (engine management light is now on but I can always have that mapped out in future).

This has made the car quite a bit quicker and almost removed the stutter altogether. I was about to congratulate him on solving the problem when i remembered that running the car on 'super diesel' also made the stutter less noticeable.

So it seems that when the car is running 'normal', the stutter is quite serious i.e. stops the car revving any higher, but give the car a little more oomph and it seems to be able to pull through the problem.

And that's about as far as my brain wave has gone to be honest! I seem to be treating the symptoms rather than the actual cause.

I'll need to get a vag com scan arranged and see if there's anything odd on that as I'm coming round to the idea that it could be a loom fault. Who knows though? These modern diesels are a bit above my head

[Tigger_1979]

I don't think you will need to worry about replacing the loom just try the V Power and booting for a while and hey presto (fingers crossed) if it was just dirty injectors the junk will work its way through.

My car is still running like a dream took a good rant with clean fuel mind.

[Chelle]

Well here's hoping ur right Tigger! I'll stick some super diesel in the car again and give it a good few kickings and see what happens.

I have developed a new issue tho (I know! I'm starting to think the car hates me too). About a week after doing the EGR delete, the car became quite difficult to start. I started it in the morning no probs and drove to work. When I tried to start it to go home at end of day, it took several turns to get it to fire. Normally the car will start within a second (eh eh vroom), now it takes quite a bit longer (eh eh eh eh eh eh eh eh eh eh eh eh eh eh vroom). Please excuse my childish decription but I'm struggling to find the right words to explain what I mean!

What I should do is put the EGR back to the way it was to see if that's causing some kind of issue but if that's the case I'm surprised it took a week to show up.

What I'm worried might be happening is whatever is causing the stutter is getting worse and is now causing other problems.

I'll get my other half to plug it in again in case this new problem has flagged up a fault. EML is on constantly because of EGR delete so I won't know if there's now something else there too.

My battery is fine as far as I know and the starter is cranking at normal speed (quite quick and it doesn't start to die before the car fires). I had initially thought it could be a duff glow plug but even after running the car up to temp, then switching off and straight back on, it still takes a while to fire.

Car sounds and drives a treat once it fires up though.

I wasn't going to bug you all with this but I just thought I should add it in case it's related to the original problem!

[piggoy]

Definitely the first thing to do would be to hook your car up to VAG-COM. You should not just scan for fault codes but get an expert to read all the important engine parameters (measuring blocks) whilst you are driving - that way they can look for problems with the MAF sensor, problems with the EGR, problems with the boost, or imbalances in the injection quantities for each cylinder, many of these probelms will not log fault codes or bring up any lights on the dash.

My thoughts based on the symptoms you describe are either dirty injectors or faulty injector wiring loom. Dirty injectors can be cured with something called 'Diesel purge' - its diesel with really strong detergents and comes in a 500ml can. To use it effectively you have to run the engine purely on it by disconnecting the fuel filter and connecting the engines fuel lines to the can.

[piggoy]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MFyfI0C-gMg