Car shuddering in 3rd, 4th and 5th gear

[Andy9090]

Hi everyone,

I wondered if there is anyone who can help me out with any ideas or feedback as to what is wrong with my car as the SEAT Mechanic doesn't seem to know himself..

Basically the problem arose a short while back but has got progressively worse. When i pull away the car is fine through first and second gear, when i hit third gear the car slightly shudders and get worse through as i go through the revs and up into fourth gear but eases of as i hit 70mph in fifth. During third through to fourth gear the problem is quite severe, even more so if there are passengers or baggage in the car, or going up hill. If i ease off in fifth gear from 70mph down to say 50mph then accelerate the problem is at its worse, the whole car shudders. This has no effect on the steering at all. The SEAT dealer say it is not the wheel balancing and seem to think it may be a problem with the drive shaft and say i need to wait until a donor car can be found so they can swap parts around to see if that is the problem, which i think is a bit of a joke, being specialists i would like them to have a positive idea what is wrong, not an assumption. I would really appreciate any help as i have to travel a lot and the last thing i need is my car being off the road. Does anyone have any ideas?

Thanks a lot,

Andy

Sorry, i've just realised ive written that whole post and not even explained what car i have.

Its the 1.9 TDI Sport and it has done about 37000 miles.

 

[gulzar]

hey andy, i would assume that if it was a driveshaft problem it would show up in the lower gears also. sounds like its building up as speed increases. the fact that it eases up at seventy points to me in the motion of the wheel effecting the car, so personally if it was me i'd try getting the wheels balanced as if that is the problem then your sorted, if its not then atleast you can rule the wheel balancing thing out. maywell be a suspension related or bush or mount problem as you say its worse under load or gearbox maybe, not sure mate.. would really need to be checked by a garage if balancing didnt work. or else you could try get it diagnosed before doing anything by a specialist i suppose.

i had vibration at above a certain speed and then it would calm down at a certain speed increase then return further up the speedo. as far as i can remember wheel balancing sorted out the problem. road are bad nowadays so might have been thrown out of allignment or balance.

also need to add that you say that your steering doesnt vibrate wheras if i remeber correctly a wheel balancing issue does show itself thru steering vibration mostly if im right, so you might not have same problem as i had.

just my two pence worth matey.i maybe wrong.

either way i hope it gets sorted as know that vibrations can make the drive a tad uncomfortable.

goodluck

gulzar

 

[rich3001]

Hi everyone,

I wondered if there is anyone who can help me out with any ideas or feedback as to what is wrong with my car as the SEAT Mechanic doesn't seem to know himself..

Basically the problem arose a short while back but has got progressively worse. When i pull away the car is fine through first and second gear, when i hit third gear the car slightly shudders and get worse through as i go through the revs and up into fourth gear but eases of as i hit 70mph in fifth. During third through to fourth gear the problem is quite severe, even more so if there are passengers or baggage in the car, or going up hill. If i ease off in fifth gear from 70mph down to say 50mph then accelerate the problem is at its worse, the whole car shudders. This has no effect on the steering at all. The SEAT dealer say it is not the wheel balancing and seem to think it may be a problem with the drive shaft and say i need to wait until a donor car can be found so they can swap parts around to see if that is the problem, which i think is a bit of a joke, being specialists i would like them to have a positive idea what is wrong, not an assumption. I would really appreciate any help as i have to travel a lot and the last thing i need is my car being off the road. Does anyone have any ideas?

Thanks a lot,

Andy

Sorry, i've just realised ive written that whole post and not even explained what car i have.

Its the 1.9 TDI Sport and it has done about 37000 miles.

i had the same sort of thing in my works astra, it didnt start to vibrate until about 45+ ,that turned out to be the drive shaft. I also had warped disks which caused the car to vibrate when slowing down

 

[Fl@pper]

check/change/swap the wheels round first, i suspect it won't make a difference but it's an easy and quick thing to test for any variation

 

[robbob]

This happens on our work vans that we use off road in muddy areas, the steering wheel does vibrate a bit but not too much, the whole car vibrates though, it turns out it is a coating of mud on the inside of the rims which throws the balancing out. Worth a try getting it balanced.

 

[DEAN0]

If i ease off in fifth gear from 70mph down to say 50mph then accelerate the problem is at its worse, the whole car shudders.
Its the 1.9 TDI Sport and it has done about 37000 miles.

Even with the torque that these engines have - is 50mph not a bit slow for booting it in 5th and could it not be laboring the engine that is causing the vibration ?

Could also be the dual mass flywheel ( if fitted with a 5 speed box )

Another thought - knackered engine mounts !

 

[Andy9090]

Thanks for all the posts everyone. Since i opened the thread i have had the front wheels swapped for the back, but it did not make any difference. I then had two new front tyres, had the wheels balanced and the tracking checked. This still had not solved the problem. The SEAT garage still think it may be the drive shaft and i've got it booked in for monday so they can take another look. Since i first posted the problem seems to have got worse aswell. The car really seems like it is really lacking power and i've been told it may be the engine misfiring, but the mechanic at SEAT says that this would immeditely show up on the dash from the engine management, has anyone got any opinions on that? Another thought i had is that when the car is shuddering and i let off the accelerator the problem completely vanishes, surely if the problem was with the drive shaft it would continue as the car is still travelling at speed and the car is still in gear and driving. In reference to a reply, the car has never had any problems accelerating in 5th gear from 50mph, surely if it was hard work for the engine it would just be sluggish? After someone gave me the idea of engine misfire it seems to fit the symptoms very well as the car has no steering issues, the problem occurs when the engine is put under pressure i.e up hills or during acceleration, and it eases when you reach a speed and stop accelerating and the car seems to be losing power as today i was going up hill at 65mph and my foot was to the floor and the car was shuddering and struggling to reach 70mph! When it would never have had a problem before on that hill. Could this be a problem with the fuel injection? Someone mentioned to me a possible problem with the turbo, but the vehicle would just be sluggish surely, as i have driven a land rover before which felt like i had no turbo whatsover, it turned out it had a hole and was losing pressure. So i dont think that matches up to my symptoms. Thanks again for everyones help so far.

An extra point that has just come to mind, recently on long journeys the cars MPG has decreased a fair bit, i used to get an average of around 56-59 mpg, but now im lucky if i get 50. I suppose this could be down to extra resistance from whatever is causing the shuddering or perhaps if the engine is misfiring i would have to give it more acceleration to keep the engine going to get me up to my desired speed.

 

[Ad Lav]

If its a Sport 100bhp the it won't matter booting it at 50mph, 6th is the killer at that speed!

 

[jeffery]

Hey mate, in the past I have seen a few cars juddering due to a problem with the clutch and they match your symptoms.
Fair enough your car hasn't done many miles yets and no way it is worn out, but there are many other things that can cause the clutch to judder. It can be that the clutch components and flywheel aren't meeting concentrically or even some sort of contamination.

May be worth a look into, but give "clutch judder" a quick google search to get more info

 

[bertrum]

IMO that sounds like the engine is retarding... i.e cutting boost/ignition aka limp mode.

Recently experienced this in a mk3 cupra, everything vibrated quite badly. It also drank through £30 of fuel to do 100miles at a steady 60mph (due to limp mode) - several errors found with vag-com; Lambda sensor (system rich) and MAF the main ones. Once cleared, not had limp mode since and less fuel being consumed. We did have lights on the dash though. Does the car behave the same if you are stationary and revving the engine?

I am slightly concerned that the SEAT tech guy relies upon the EML to eliminate this. Take it back to them and ask to hook up to vag-com. Even if the light isn't on, it should have some errors stored.
The EML doesn't always come on when it's recorded a fault.

 

[basssound]

If your booting it in 6th at 50mph then i'd be getting your dual mass flywhell checked.
Mine does exactly the same at really low rpm and high gears!!

 

[mikko22]

seat altea vibration

Thanks for all the posts everyone. Since i opened the thread i have had the front wheels swapped for the back, but it did not make any difference. I then had two new front tyres, had the wheels balanced and the tracking checked. This still had not solved the problem. The SEAT garage still think it may be the drive shaft and i've got it booked in for monday so they can take another look. Since i first posted the problem seems to have got worse aswell. The car really seems like it is really lacking power and i've been told it may be the engine misfiring, but the mechanic at SEAT says that this would immeditely show up on the dash from the engine management, has anyone got any opinions on that? Another thought i had is that when the car is shuddering and i let off the accelerator the problem completely vanishes, surely if the problem was with the drive shaft it would continue as the car is still travelling at speed and the car is still in gear and driving. In reference to a reply, the car has never had any problems accelerating in 5th gear from 50mph, surely if it was hard work for the engine it would just be sluggish? After someone gave me the idea of engine misfire it seems to fit the symptoms very well as the car has no steering issues, the problem occurs when the engine is put under pressure i.e up hills or during acceleration, and it eases when you reach a speed and stop accelerating and the car seems to be losing power as today i was going up hill at 65mph and my foot was to the floor and the car was shuddering and struggling to reach 70mph! When it would never have had a problem before on that hill. Could this be a problem with the fuel injection? Someone mentioned to me a possible problem with the turbo, but the vehicle would just be sluggish surely, as i have driven a land rover before which felt like i had no turbo whatsover, it turned out it had a hole and was losing pressure. So i dont think that matches up to my symptoms. Thanks again for everyones help so far.

An extra point that has just come to mind, recently on long journeys the cars MPG has decreased a fair bit, i used to get an average of around 56-59 mpg, but now im lucky if i get 50. I suppose this could be down to extra resistance from whatever is causing the shuddering or perhaps if the engine is misfiring i would have to give it more acceleration to keep the engine going to get me up to my desired speed.

hi andy, did u fix this problem??? im going mad from mine, its the same as yours, i spent nearly 2000pounds but the problem is still there, new dualmass flywheel, all injectors checked,new fuel temperature sensor,.... it stops when i plug out fuel temperature sensor or when the car is cold in morning,.. the worse is on fifth gear in 50mph when i put foot down on gas or uphill 4th gear or when the boot is full plus 2passangers. now i dont know what else i can do,.... its a seat altea sport 1,9tdi bkc engine

 

[Razzario]

Dmf judder mine does it, not far off buying a propper clutch and sorting it

 

[mikko22]

Dmf judder mine does it, not far off buying a propper clutch and sorting it

dmf was as a first thing done on my car ,problem still there.

 

[Andy9090]

Hey Mikko

I've not been on here for a long time and forgot to update on the problem!

It turned out the fault was the front left drive shaft was bent (unsure as to how that happened). They fixed it with a new part under warranty and the problem was fixed! I hope this helps mate.

Thanks for everyones help and ideas.

Andy

 

[mikko22]

hi andy. its good hear that from u .. my one its something else i think. when is engine cold is working well, also i put new software on it, now i have bosch edc16.

if somebody leave near watford and can help me with that, let me know
this moment i trying find rolling road in my area and find some bosch serviciing,... uf

 

[djinkinson]

Judder

It's the 'doughnut' in the prop-shaft! I'd guess you have vibration about 2250 revs? Also a problem on Audi All-road. VAG brought out a solution (new doughnut design) in Sept or so but, despite it being a design problem I'd guess, it's the owner who pays! But the new doughnut costs a lot less than a new prop-shaft - which was the solution before!

Hope this helps

Dave

 

[Lambro6]

Only 6 months late, lol!