Help wanted: Eml on, loss of power and "shakiness" pulling a

[Mysticalballs]

Hello all,

First of all, please excuse my not so technical terminology, my mechanical knowledge is very limited.

The car is a 53 plate Golf 1.4 petrol btw (yes, a beast 😂)

Also i don't know if its noteworthy, but I've just had the rear and centre exhaust silencers replaced (on friday) and I've hardly driven the car since then until today. Ive probably done about 50 miles betweem them being fitted and this problem occurring.

So heres the problem:
Finished work tonight, started her up and there's a bit of a shake from the engine and beneath my feet, accompanied by the eml coming on and flashing. I pull away slowly and there's a bit more shaking and I thought she was going to cut out, i found revving a little higher reduced the shakiness quite a lot. Into 2nd gear and it's not so bad.. Pretty much fine once I'm off the clutch completely.

2nd gear to 5th seems like not much of an issue (eml also went off before long). I did about 20 miles on the motorway to get home and while staying in 5th gear the only issue was the lack of power, at times I'd have my foot all the way down on the accelerator and gain no speed, other times with my foot down the car would accelerate, a bit slower than usual but not drastically (it's slow at the best of times to be fair).

Off the motorway, roundabouts and traffic when having to pull away from a stopped position, shaky again but using highish revs seemed to help.

Get home and have to parallel park into a tight spot... shakiness is bad again (couldn't use my higher rev technique so well) and thought it was going to cut out again.

I left it running and popped the bonnet to have a listen for anything more than anything to be honest. Seemed to be running pretty normally. I gently revved it in neutral and there seemed to be a bit of a shake of the engine at exactly the same point every time i revved it. Only now did the eml come back on.

So after a while of not really knowing what to do turned her off, came inside and turned to the internet for help.

Any help/ advice is much appreciated.

Thanks in advance.. And sorry if my explanation of the problem is a bit long winded!

[E-bmw]

Well it sounds like you have a misfire.

That and your exhaust are almost certainly not related unless you can hear a MAHOOSIVE amount of exhaust noise & they left something major off.

The cause of your misfire (assuming that is what it is) could be any one of many things but as you admit to not being very mechanically minded I am not sure what we can say to help, but there is something even you can look for.

Just check that everything looks like it is connected to where it should be.

I know you have no previous experience of the engine bay but you should likely be able to see if there is something drastically loose/hanging off & hopefully if you do, you may also see where it has come from.

After that you are in the realms of asking a mate who knows about these things or taking it to a garage.

[Mysticalballs]

Thanks for your reply.

I'll have a look for anything obvious and try and get it into a garage today.

Thanks again.

[MatrixXXx]

Sounds like one cylinder is not firing, that will cause the light to come on, could be leads, spark plug, or spark module, or a air leak, or a fuel problem.

if your not mechanically minded than you will have to take it ot a garage, try and find one that has good revews.

[steveo3002]

get a scanner //code reader and read the fault codes ,then post up what codes /google it ....no point in guessing it can turn expensive