Car shuddering when turned on.

[kipperbailey]

Hi all, 

 

I not so recently migrated to a VW Golf from a Fabia vRS (and have regretted letting go of it ever since). Largely the Golf has been non-problematic, but recently I've been having issues. 

 

It all started on a local trip, I went through some surface water (nothing out of the ordinary, but more than the car has seen for a while due to it being sat). After that, I parked up and went to the shop, then got back and about 25 mins in to my return journey, the car start violently shuddering on start stop. As in, when it started up again - it shuddered violently, as if the engine was not held firm. Start-stop has not worked since on the car. 

 

I then took it to a local garage, who said there was 'a few error codes on it' but they looked in to it and couldn't find anything wrong. They said if it was shuddering, this suggested a gearbox problem which would be a VW issue and something they couldn't consider themselves. 

 

I then took it to VW, and on the first day they said there was no faults to be found and there was nothing wrong. However, I wasn't very pleased that this was the case as there is a few issues, start stop being one and the shuddering being the other. The garage then offered to keep it overnight and to kick it up in the morning if anything happened differently then. After doing so, the garage rang back and said yes, it is shuddering on start up - but it stops quickly thereafter. 

 

They said in the first instance this was likely to be the 'flywheel', which regretfully means very little to me. I asked what this meant, and they said it meant 'removing the gearbox, which in and of itself would cost £600'. I then said well what else could it be, what else would need to be done and what their advice was. They said as follows: it could be the cold; the clutch would need to be replaced; and finally, they said they would 'leave it until May', which seems a little vague. 

 

I did say the car is only 3.5 years old and surely this issue would be covered by warranty or similar as this shouldn't be occurring after 32k miles. The garage said that was not the case, and that was it. 

 

I therefore wondered whether anyone might be able to shed some light on this? Shuddering on startup, then start stop not working? Does this sound flywheel related? Or could it just be that it is cold, and it isn't being driven very far at the moment. Any advice would be hugely appreciated. 

 

Kipper.