The car has 105 000 miles currently, the clutch was replaced at 80 000 miles, I wasn't the owner of the car at the time. When in neutral just idling it often makes a horrible noise, to make this noise go away I can do a couple of things: Press the clutch, but when I let the clutch out chances are it's still making the horrible noise. I can also rev it up a little bit to make the noise go away. The third thing I can do to make the noise go away is move the shifter slightly without pressing the clutch or shifting it into an actual gear. I also noticed that while driving at a low rpm I can also hear this noise. I am assuming that it can't be the clutch, because it feels fine and it was replaced already, so what could it be? I have seen other posts describing a similar issue, but I didn't find an answer. If it's gearbox related, does the whole gearbox need to be replaced/refurbished? Thanks in advance!

1 hour ago, Gabe7 said:

I am assuming that it can't be the clutch, because it feels fine and it was replaced already, so what could it be?

Bad assumption. It could be a misaligned thrust bearing.

That's easily identified if you've heard one before, and just requires the thrust bearing rather than the clutch assembly replacing so the bill is less than a replacement clutch.

Could it be the input shaft bearing instead?

Dual mass flywheel rattle 100% from the description, there is no "alignment" to misalign when fitting a clutch release bearing and a noisy one does not fit with any of the symptoms.

 

My money is that either the DMF was not replaced with the clutch or the new one has failed.

 

2 hours ago, Gabe7 said:

The third thing I can do to make the noise go away is move the shifter slightly without pressing the clutch or shifting it into an actual gear

 

Do not do that, you are wearing away the friction area of the synchromesh baulk rings, a couple of seconds of that abuse equates to 100000 miles of wear from normal gearchanges using the clutch.

To my knowledge a 2006 Skoda Fabia 1.4 PD TDI doesn't have a DMF. I will try my best to describe my issue in more detail (maybe even record a video later). The car is idling, I put it into neutral and let the clutch out. Chances are it's making a horrible noise, but it doesn't make this noise all the time, it's not guaranteed, it's a 50-50. When it does make the noise I rev it up a little bit and the noise goes away, revs drop down to normal and it's fine, no noise. Now let's say I press the clutch and then let it out again, chances are it's making the noise again. So if I keep pressing the clutch pedal and letting it out sometimes it makes the noise, other times it doesn't. I mentioned that by slightly moving the shifter the noise goes away, I don't actually do this, I just found out recently that the noise goes away by doing this. I also mentioned that while driving at a very low rpm I can sometimes hear the noise. Let's say in second gear I'm taking a sharp corner, if the rpm goes very low I can hear it, if I take my foot off the gas pedal completely then I can hear it too, but if I press the clutch while taking the corner I don't hear it.

33 minutes ago, J.R. said:

Do not do that, you are wearing away the friction area of the synchromesh baulk rings, a couple of seconds of that abuse equates to 100000 miles of wear from normal gearchanges using the clutch.

I think you misunderstood what I way trying to say. I don't mean clutchless gearchanges. The car is in neutral, if I move the shifter slightly without pressing the clutch pedal the noise goes away, what I was trying to say is I am not shifting it into a gear when I am moving the shifter, it stays in neutral.

Pushing it in the direction of engaging a gear, meeting some resistance but not engaging the gear is what I was warning about and a scenario where a rattling DMF would become quiet.

 

I dont know a lot about Fabias but if the 1.4 diesel does not have a DMF then it could be gear chatter which afflicts certain VAG gearboxes when a DMF is either replaced with a plain flywheel or was not fitted as standard in which case they call it a feature!!

Edited 21 January, 20251 yr by J.R.

Moving/pushing the shifter is something I have only done once and found it interesting how the noise went away when I did it. This has nothing to do with my actual issue and will not solve it. I can not believe the fact that Fabias with a 1.4 diesel are simply like this from the factory, there has to be an issue somewhere.

Had this on a 2006 1.4TDI classic that I used to own, was the gearbox input shaft  bearing. When you put your foot on the clutch in neutral, the gearbox input shaft stops rotating - the flywheel and pressure plate that are attached to the engine so continue to rotate while the friction plate that is fixed to the gearbox input shaft stops rotating. For me it was a used gearbox to fix.