Looking for some advice on my A3 Sportback which has a problem when pulling away in 1st gear. When pulling away there is an intermittent judder through the clutch pedal. The car is only 4 years old and done just over 15,000 miles. Any help would be much appreciated. 

Hello Steve, 

Interesting. The clutch on our 148K 2006 A3 1.6 (in the family from new) has just been replaced due to juddering. It has never slipped and it seems to clutch plate would have been fine for more service. However the clutch has always been sharp and prone to judder - almost from new, as you claim with yours, and to me, it never, ever was a smooth clutch. Our daughter who drove this through most of its long-journey mileage seemed to get on with it. 

Anyway, fast forward to last week when the clutch was replaced with a quality LUK kit ( Audi part would have cost about 3x the price!) . You could feel something was wrong when the pedal was partially pressed. 

It's now as smooth as a baby's what's it, and much much lighter than it's ever been. 

Culprit - clutch release bearing, which judging by the flimsy nature of the LUK part, it doesn't surprise me at all! 

Not sure what engine is in yours (ours is the older 1.6 basic one), so things might be different with yours and may well be more complex with DM flywheel etc. 

Points to consider:- If it simply judders then this is likely to go on for a long time, getting very gradually worse, but probably being lived with. 

If you can feel (and hear?) a roughness or slight judder from the pedal itself when partly depressed and held in this position then it's time to worry. 

Hope some of this might be of help and/or reassurance.

Kind regards,

Gareth.

Hi Gareth, 

I appreciate your comments. I can't quite understand how a clutch can have an issue after 14K miles. I bought the car second hand 2 years ago from an approved AUDI dealer with 7.5K on the clock. My A3 model is the 1.4 CoD TFSI. Great car & drives really well apart from this very frustrating problem. 

Have you heard of anyone else with this problem bearing in mind age/mileage of the car?

Kind regards,

Steve

 

Hello Steve,

No, personally I can't say I have heard of others having problems, or not, but no doubt there are others on here who are far more into these things day to day than I am. Sorry, but again I cannot say whether the full clutch and flywheel arrangement on yours is similar to our fairly basic set up - again others may. I would be tempted to think yours would have the more complex dual mass flywheel, but...? 

What I would ask is (apart from the judder on clutch take up) do you experience any roughness/ pulsing/ undue noise with the clutch pedal partly depressed to a point where the clutch is slightly depressed? This will be felt through the pedal - or not, but only when pressed say half way, or slightly,  down.

Kind regards,

Gareth.