Car vibrating with at idle with clutch down and in gear.

[Triumph Man]

Hi all,

For once not a problem with any car that I own

A mate of mine bought a 2004 Audi A3 2.0 tdi the other day, and took me for a spin. I noticed that if he came to a stop, say in traffic for example, with the engine idling, clutch down and in gear, that after a few seconds the car would begin to vibrate or 'pulse'. I'm afraid it's quite hard to describe, but it wasn't just the normal engine vibration. I suppose you could say it felt like mild clutch judder, if that makes sense. I know judder when setting off is a classic sign of DMF failure, but this 'pulsing' only occurred when stationary, and after a few seconds.

I had the same problem on my old Passat (with more than double the mileage) and always wondered what it was. At the time I thought it could be the Dual Mass Flywheel, but wondered if there was anything else it could be. Trawling "da interweb" has not revealed anything on the subject.

I would like to find out just to satisfy my own curiosity, and alert my friend to it.

[Triumph Man]

Jw Vw said:

I have this issue on my Golf - I believe it could have something to do with the heatshield on the exhaust?

That's an interesting theory, how does it make the whole car pulse?

[Triumph Man]

Jw Vw said:

Not too sure tbh, there is a thread in the audi,vw&seat forum regarding this. Have a quick look.

Ah brilliant will do, it's a common issue then?

[Triumph Man]

Jw Vw said:

Believe so,

Here's the thread.

http://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&a...

That's very kind of you, but to be honest that doesn't sound like the problem at all. It's certainly not a rattle, its more a judder that can be felt but not heard.