Do I have a problem here?

"4muddyfeet - bare knuckle with an EZ30" (4muddyfeet) 04/28/2015 at 19:15 • Filed to: skoda

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Today, my first day of driving the Skoda in heavy rain, I thought the engine had developed a stutter. Small, short but frequent losses (not complete) of power in gears 1 and 2, at low speeds, happening at constant revs and during gentle acceleration (The engine idled fine). This happened three times today, so I was starting to get quite concerned.

I took the car out tonight in the dry for a 50 mile blast to try and replicate the problem in all the gears, but to no avail, not even in first or second. I also did a DPF regen for good measure. I did notice that the TCS alert is lazy as shit though. It will allow the wheels to spin, then it will interfere, then it will flash the TCS light on the dash a second or so later (kinda slow, no?).

So I checked the reviews on these ^ tyres, which I’ve already questioned the ability of;

!!! UNKNOWN CONTENT TYPE !!!

And while they’re seemingly happy in the dry, they get really poor write ups for wet weather performance. They proved this today by spinning constantly when moving off from a standstill. So I’ve come to the conclusion that my tyres are shitty, and the TCS was involved in the ‘stutter’ that I attributed to my engine. Interfering constantly in short bursts, but not long enough to throw the TCS light up on the dash, all while the tyres struggled in the heavy rain (but not enough to notice by feel due to low gear/revs)

Does that sound likely? Like, at all? It’s probably worth changing my front tyres anyway, but am I missing something obviously wrong with my engine that could lead to all this?

jkm7680 > 4muddyfeet - bare knuckle with an EZ30 04/28/2015 at 19:17

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Does the car have an aftermarket CAI?

4muddyfeet - bare knuckle with an EZ30 > jkm7680 04/28/2015 at 19:19

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Don’t think so. I haven’t actually popped the hood since I bought it, but the stock airbox is definitely in there.

jkm7680 > 4muddyfeet - bare knuckle with an EZ30 04/28/2015 at 19:22

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Check 02 sensor?

4muddyfeet - bare knuckle with an EZ30 > jkm7680 04/28/2015 at 19:25

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Would that not throw a CEL? I know a guy with VCDS so it may be worth a trip to see him

jkm7680 > 4muddyfeet - bare knuckle with an EZ30 04/28/2015 at 19:28

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Hmmmm, I’m not actually sure. Never heard of that problem before.

4muddyfeet - bare knuckle with an EZ30 > jkm7680 04/28/2015 at 19:28

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That’s great news then, so it might be the tyres?!

jkm7680 > 4muddyfeet - bare knuckle with an EZ30 04/28/2015 at 19:32

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It’s definitely possible. From what I’ve heard that kind of issue is consistent with water getting into sensors or a cracked ignition coil getting water in it.

What kind of tires are they? You could try and contact their customer support and seeing if that will provide any answers.

4muddyfeet - bare knuckle with an EZ30 > jkm7680 04/28/2015 at 19:35

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A Chinese brand ‘Evergreen’. Mixed reviews all round. I think I’ll pop the bonnet tomorrow and have look. Thank you again.

jkm7680 > 4muddyfeet - bare knuckle with an EZ30 04/28/2015 at 19:37

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Ah, that gives me even more of a feeling that the tires may have something to do with this. Get some Pirellis, haha.

Good luck though man!

4muddyfeet - bare knuckle with an EZ30 > jkm7680 04/28/2015 at 19:46

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The Briskoda forum members heavily recommend the GoodYear Eagle F1 AS2’s for the diesel vRS, whereas I have a penchant for Pirelli and Michelin. What to do what to do.

jkm7680 > 4muddyfeet - bare knuckle with an EZ30 04/28/2015 at 19:49

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I’d say if they reccomend the Good Year tires, then those are probably the best bet for the car. They probably have had Pirellis before and didn’t like them or something.

4muddyfeet - bare knuckle with an EZ30 > jkm7680 04/28/2015 at 19:55

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£100 a corner ain’t bad after all. I’ll give them a shot.

jkm7680 > 4muddyfeet - bare knuckle with an EZ30 04/28/2015 at 19:58

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Nice! Not bad at all.

TDIGuy > 4muddyfeet - bare knuckle with an EZ30 04/29/2015 at 01:02

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My Jetta TDI does something similar usually in third when at a slow or constant throttle. It just kinda stutters for a split second and then its fine like you almost cant even tell it happens it almost feels like I just messed up a gear change when it happens.

Svend > 4muddyfeet - bare knuckle with an EZ30 04/29/2015 at 02:44

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Falkens’ are £95.80 with £10 off for 2-3 tyres and £25 off for four tyres.

4muddyfeet - bare knuckle with an EZ30 > TDIGuy 04/29/2015 at 02:48

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2.0?

4muddyfeet - bare knuckle with an EZ30 > Svend 04/29/2015 at 02:54

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The Briskoda forums members have recommended the GoodYear Eagle F1 AS2’s for the vRS diesel, and considering their overall reviews and spec I think they’re what I’d replace with. c.£100 a corner, so not too bad :)

Smoggi - powered by 3 cylinders > 4muddyfeet - bare knuckle with an EZ30 04/29/2015 at 03:31

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You can’t really go wrong with Goodyear, Continental, Michelin or Pirelli. Either of those is going to improve your wet and probably even dry performance.

You can tell a Finn but you can't tell him much > 4muddyfeet - bare knuckle with an EZ30 04/29/2015 at 08:47

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Based on this being a diesel it is not likely a miss. Since there are no spark plugs there is no ignition system to give problems when driving in the wet. The only thing that could cause problems would be a poor connection in the fuel pump circuit that causes problems when it gets wet. Since your problem is limited to acceleration at low speeds and in low gears that seems to rule out a fuel pump problem as that would be just as likely to occur when cruising at speed in the rain.

I think you are on the right track attributing this to poor tires and a lazy TCS light. Since a diesel tends to put out high torque at low rpm it won’t take much throttle to put a lot of torque into the tires, and low gears will exacerbate the problem because of how much they multiply the torque.

4muddyfeet - bare knuckle with an EZ30 > You can tell a Finn but you can't tell him much 04/29/2015 at 12:44

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That’s encouraging to hear. The Skoda forums have thrown no light on the matter so it’s obviously not a known fault. Thanks for the info

TDIGuy > 4muddyfeet - bare knuckle with an EZ30 04/30/2015 at 00:35

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Yup 2.0l CR TDI

4muddyfeet - bare knuckle with an EZ30 > TDIGuy 04/30/2015 at 02:58

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Yeh, same engine. How long has it been happening?

TDIGuy > 4muddyfeet - bare knuckle with an EZ30 04/30/2015 at 15:45

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As long as I’ve had the car so like a year and a half. It’s never caused any real issues it is just a brief stutter then its fine again. And like I said it seems to only happen under certain conditions.