Juddering gear changes

[Sjcrowther]

Just literally popped to the shops in my petrol B5 A4, it has 138k on the clock.

Been driving it for 6 months now and just tonight for the first 1 mile of my journey the car juddered and shook with each gear change, however this stopped for the remainder of the 5 mile journey and the gear changes were smooth and normal.

It has never done this before, however after a quick google, folk are talking about clutches slipping when the car is cold, and as we are nearing winter and having only ever owned this car during the warm summer months this may be the case.

Can anyone shed some light in this issue or has anyone had this?

It went through its MOT last month and nothing clutch or gearbox related was highlighted. Passed with flying colours.

Sam

Car had a new clutch at 93k

[rynaqui]

Is your flywheel dual-mass?

[K Simmonds]

The MOT does not cover operation of the clutch or gearbox, I've presented cars that barely move due to slipping clutches or only have two working gears out of five and it's not even been mentioned. The MOT is no way a confirmation of overall satisfactory mechanical condition, it just means the stuff on the list worked on the day.


It sounds very much like a duel mass flywheel problem to me, is there any noise to along with the juddering?.

[piotr]

i don't think MOT would highligt any problems wit clutch or gearbox unless it woud slipp realy,realy badly. if your car judder and shook you might have problem with your flywheel.

[Sjcrowther]

Literally just juddering for no more than 5 secs. no noise.

Took the car out this morning, very cold out, similar conditions to the day before when the juddering occurred however today she ran sweet as a nut from the word go, did some town driving, plenty of clutch control, stop starts, up and down the box, no problems, then took her out onto a main road, no issues with going up the gears or down, high speeds all fine, dropping gears at high speeds fine. No problems.

Can someone fill me in if it were to be the flywheel? potential issues/costings ect ect.

Sam

[K Simmonds]

In a way it's great that the problem has gone, but unfortunately it makes it even harder to try and diagnosis. Normally once a duel mass flywheel starts to misbehave it does it pretty consistently, you maybe lucky and it never does it again but what's more likely is that it happen again at the most inconvenient time possible. I'd be keeping an eye on what develops over the next 100 or so miles very carefully.

To change the flywheel is the same amount of work + 1/2 an hour as changing a clutch, it's pretty much the same job. Duel mass flywheels are mega expensive new, if your paying for someone else to do the work you'll want to budget about £500 to source and fit a second hand DMF, if you want a brand new one you'll be looking at the thick end of a grand all in.

[Sjcrowther]

Many thanks for that info, great help!

Got a fellow Audi fan who is savvy with techy stuff who is willing/capable to do the work if needed so that brings the cost down greatly.

Further update of driving her done a further 40miles or so and still no further juddering or roughness, still sweet as a nut and driving like normal. Threw her around bit also to see if I could get any negative response from it but in true Audi style she stayed solid.
Intense Google searching has thrown up many theory's, including the flywheel issues but also stuff from software updates (skeptical on this theory) to sticky clutches.
Seems like there are a few folks out there with similar aged cars who have experience similar issues, but not been able to diagnose the issue.

Sam