my 4 yr old fabia 1.9 tdi has had problems for about 2 years, the dealers can't sort it out! - When you take off in 1st gear it judders. It is not a permanent problem, but is getting increasingly worse. Whenever it goes to the dealers, it doesn't happen! - probably because it has clearted by the time I have driven the mile or so to get there. They have taken the clutch out & reckon that is ok. Anyone got any ideas? - I'm taking it back to the garage next week & leaving it with them!

I would suggest another garage since you feel there is a problem.

Since they have chosen or can not find a problem within the Warranty, i would take your money someplace else now.

It would be best to be able to re-produce the problem when a mechanic is driving, or it never will be felt by others.

?How about a good mobile mechanic that can come to you

& then drive the car with you in, under the circumstances that you feel the judder under?

george

This problem is being sorted as a warranty incident, so i'm stuck with the dealers.

Hopefully, if i leave the car with them long enough, they will experience the problem themselves

Janet MacDonald

It matters not which dealers see it, for warantee purposes.

AS said above.

I would give another Skoda dealership the pleasure and the money from Skoda, & let them run their eyes over it.

Amazing what you sometimes find out when another workshop looks at your vehicle.

And nothing to stop you from getting someone that knows cars to drive with you when the Judder is happening,

get an educated diagnosis of the problem,

and you can compare what they say with the Garages assessment, they got 2 years already to come up with something..

& Sorry, welcome to the forum,

i never noticed it was your first posts.

george

Am I able to do change dealers at this stage? - Skoda is aware that there is a problem. Would another dealer not want paying?

Yes, but Skoda UK pay them for warantee work. Warantee is backed by the manufacturer and not the dealer it was bought from.

Could I take it to a local garage rather than a dealer?

Doesn anyone have any ideas as to what the problem might be?

Sorry to have confused things more.

You are best probably to carry on as you were and leave it with your dealer.

(the one thats been at it already)

Just that since you said they had taken out the clutch and found nothing.

(i take it you got a 'new clutch' fitted, & it did not improve the the Judder you were feeling.)

My idea was to put it in the hands of someone that might be able to find a problem if there is one with the Clutch or the gearbox.

*Or possible an engine problem showing its self when cold.*

You must stick with 'Skoda' finding the fault and fixing it, they are paying..

You can still have someone else to try and diagnose the fault by driving it.

Not being cheeky or sexist,

but often a mechanic needs to see how someone drives to get an idea if it is the vehicle or the driver.

Thats both male and female drivers.

george

The clutch was not replaced - they said that there was plenty of 'meat' on the clutch & put it back.

The problem doesn't just happen when I drive the car, it also does it to my husband & also a friend of ours when he tried it.

It just doesn't seem to play the mechanics up.

I appreciate you taking your time to reply to me.

We have made suggestions to the dealers, but until they experience the problem, they don't want to do anything about it - they suggested it was down to us not giving it enough revs! We have always driven diesel cars & never experienced this problem before we bought this car. - we previously had peugeots & citroens.

Janet

Others with more knowledge than me might comment.

Its a long time since i served my time & worked as a mechanic in others garages, (i paint cars now)

but i have never seen someone in a professional garage check a clutch and then not replace it for all the cost of a new one, when the problem looked like being the clutch.

(The labour cost compared to the part just does not make sense to not put in a new clutch)

I feel that they will now be replacing it.

As i said,

others that still work in modern workshops will be best to comment.

All the best with it.

george

I don't know if this particular car has one, but could it be the Dual Mass Flywheel on the way out? If so, the clutch plate could well still have plenty of meat left on it yet you still get the juddering.

The ways of warranty work don't always make sense but at a guess, the dealer was allowed x hours of "investigation" time. Investigation said clutch wasn't excessively worn, so there would be no authorisation for a new clutch kit. It seems crazy to you and me, but they think they've saved a couple hundred quid on the issue. Not if they have to do it again though...and they probably won't be fussed as the next bout of work would probably be in another financial period (month/quarter/year) so they really wouldn't mind paying again.

VW are equally as daft - they paid for (at least) 5 sets of plugs, a set of injectors, an ECU, piston rings and a head rebuild before letting the tech do his job (rather than be a reporter) and found VW had been supplying the wrong plugs in the first place. Plugs - £40 a set. The rest of the work (plus 2 months in hire cars!) - £5k? £10k?

Edited 13 September, 201213 yr by philhoward

yep dual mass. early signs of failure

Thank you for all your input. Apparently the car doesn't have a dual mass flywheel. By what you have said, I can look forward to a few trips to the garage over the coming weeks & months - & they haven't offered me a courtesy car!

The car is great in all other ways, but this is really getting us down - we just don't seem to be getting anywhere.

I'll report back next week after they've had the car for a few days.

have a good weekend

Janet

Hello again,

The garage had the car for a week & couldn't detect any problems while it was there! So I've got it back, although to be fair it has been going like a dream, but still no solution.

I'll just have to hope that it behaves now, - fingers crossed!

Janet

My Yeti sometimes judders when backing off the drive when cold, my Audi also did this, I just learned to master it, I found less revs when letting the clutch up made for smoother moving off