Car juddering when accelerating

Lauren2205 · 12 June 2019 at 9:33AM

Hi all,

Hoping someone can shed some light on this for me and that it's not going to be too costly

I have a 2014 Renault Clio with about 72,000 miles on the clock. This morning when I was driving to work it was juddering and seemed to be lacking power whenever I accelerated. I pulled out of my street and as I changed up to second gear the power seemed to drop out when I was accelerating and the orange engine light started flashing. I pulled off the accelerator and after about 30 seconds the light went off. For the rest of my journey then every time I changed gear it would start juddering again even in the lower gears and would have no power when I accelerated.
Its about a 10 minute drive to work and just as I was getting there the problem seemed to have settled down, there is a long 40mph road leading up to my work and as i drove down there and changed up through all the gears there was no problem.
I had a full service and MOT 3 weeks ago and there were no problems.
Any ideas what this could be? Its been quite cold and rainy here the last few days, could it just be that the engine was cold? I must say I usually do quite a lot of miles in the car - I usually commute a 100 mile round trip 3/4 days a week.

chunkytfg · 12 June 2019 at 9:53AM

So just to clarify.

Driving along under constant throttle or decelerating it was acting fine.

Accelerating it would become juddery?

Petrol or diesel?

If petrol my initial thought would be a misfire put down to Dodgy spark plug or coil/HT lead.

When it was serviced were the spark plugs changed or was it just fluids and filters?

Lauren2205 · 12 June 2019 at 10:17AM

chunkytfg wrote: »

So just to clarify.

Driving along under constant throttle or decelerating it was acting fine.

Accelerating it would become juddery?

Petrol or diesel?

If petrol my initial thought would be a misfire put down to Dodgy spark plug or coil/HT lead.

When it was serviced were the spark plugs changed or was it just fluids and filters?

Yes that's right, constant throttle it was fine, just when I put my foot down slightly it would start juddering as if it was about to cut out. Its a petrol car, I'm not sure if they changed the spark plugs at the service, I will have a look on the report they gave me when I get home. If its a dodgy spark plug do you know what I'm looking at cost wise to get it fixed?

foxy-stoat · 12 June 2019 at 10:26AM

You would need to diagnose what is causing the juddering before we can guess at a price to fix it. Could be cheap, could be a lot more.

chunkytfg · 12 June 2019 at 10:42AM

Lauren2205 wrote: »

Yes that's right, constant throttle it was fine, just when I put my foot down slightly it would start juddering as if it was about to cut out. Its a petrol car, I'm not sure if they changed the spark plugs at the service, I will have a look on the report they gave me when I get home. If its a dodgy spark plug do you know what I'm looking at cost wise to get it fixed?

If it is a spark plug or Coil thats knackered a set of plugs and labour to change them will be fairly minimal and if its a coil again it it a simple job to change them but the cost of the coil could be anything from dirt cheap to really not very cheap.

If the car idles correctly and only has problems under load then diagnosing the issue will be the biggest hurdle so all I would say is it has the potential to be a fairly painless fix but could be worse.

Did you get it serviced at a good local independent garage, main dealer or a halfords auto centre type place?

If its the Indy garage take it back and let them look at it. if it was one of the others then find a good Indy garage:T

IanDMcC · 12 June 2019 at 4:31PM

I had similar problems which turned out to be the WRONG plugs fitted at service and recall similar issues with leads. I have since carried out fitting these myself as they're easy, usually accessible and cheap if you have the right tools. I have also dealt with some garages that will fit parts bought by me and charged minimal labour, like brake pads. Worth asking a garage if they'll fit parts bought by you as that can save a lot and you get the parts you decide to buy at that cost, not a bumped up price for the cheapest they can get.

facade · 12 June 2019 at 5:25PM

We are talking about the yellow engine light, rather than the yellow triangle that means the traction control has activated due to a slippery road?

The engine light flashing is as above most likely a faulty coilpack.

no1catman · 17 June 2019 at 3:53PM

I had something similar happen to me. I had a temperature warning light go on after about 100 yards of driving.
RAC said nothing wrong - just faulty part that needs replacing. Fine, still drove very slowly, to the garage half- mile away. Auto-electrician checked it, faulty item replaced - but not straight away drove it home - gently, and back again when part in.
I experienced the juddering,, when 'going home' and when it was all finished. When I collected it, I was reassured by their comment that it had been road tested.
Normally I could acce0lerated smoothly and steadily through the gears, it wouldn't go for that. I needed to put on the power - much more so than normal.
Made arrangements to go for a second opinion, when bizarrely the problem just went away.
Whether, I was being too tentative with it, or maybe the brakes were sticking, I don't know, just thankful it didn't last.

Car juddering when accelerating

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