I hope the other Twinair owners might be able to help with something I have noticed which I'm not sure is normal or not.

In a high gear at a relatively low speed (around 30mph for 4th and 40mph for 5th which is around 1500rpm in my 5 speed Trekking) when blipping the throttle the whole car judders. There is the intentional delay with the fly-by-wire system so it happens about half a second after pushing the pedal but also when taking it off. It becomes more noticeable the quicker I push the pedal and pushing in and out causes the whole car to kangaroo along with an accompanying rattle somewhere in engine bay which sounds quite worrying. This rattle and shaking also happens continually if I labor the engine by putting it in 5th and accelerating from 30mph. This isn't my driving style, but I don't think it should be doing this.

I don't remember this happening when I first got the car but then I may just not have noticed before. Could someone please confirm if theirs also does this?

I've also got a knock/pop sound when pushing the clutch in to change gear which is only noticeable when changing up from the lower gears but I'm not sure if it's related to the judder issue or not.

The dealer had the car back for 4 days but couldn't find anything wrong. They changed the master cylinder hoping that was causing the pop sound but it hasn't made any difference and I don't think they even looked at the shaking issue. It's going back in again this Thursday for 'The Inspector' to have a look but I've already been told what I am hearing could be normal!

I've read a couple of others having issues with the clutch but the symptoms seemed a bit different. Hope someone can offer some assistance!


Thanks
John

It seems to be possible to get the management system to not cope with low speed/wide throttle (I know it has no throttle but you know what I mean) conditions. It's happened to me only a handful of times in nearly 7000 miles and I couldn't really describe the combination of circumstances that cause it, but I do recognise what you're describing. Doesn't feel like a clutch problem, more something like the turbo stalling just when you need it to give the torque a nudge. If it happened to me more frequently I'd definitely have a check for any software updates, for instance.

how many miles on the engine..??,


there are a fair few things it COULD be,


some will be wear related,
others could well be something not torqued down correctly ( in a relatively NEW car..),
the only things I've noticed with MY (punto) TA,
are;
a strange whirr on deceleration ( DMF..??)


lumpy idle if you nearly stall it.. takes around 10 / 15 seconds to climb back up to tickover,


was poor like this for @ 40 mins of shunting out of goodwood..thought it was "coil-pack Doom",
but it's obviously done 3 months an 2K since..,
Charlie

Not experience this

Thanks for the responses so far.

It's done just under 6000 miles. The garage put some updated software on it but it didn't make any difference. They also said they checked for anything loose. It does feel and sound a bit like it's stalling but I wouldn't expect that at 1500rpm?

The mechanic came with me on a test drive and as soon as I showed him what happens under the conditions I described earlier he seemed to think something wasn't right either. When driving normally you wouldn't notice.

triumph7 said:

Not experience this

Click to expand...

My TA Trekking judders if I hold on to a gear when slowing down
when the revs drop below ~1500 and I push on the accelerator

I think it's the engine resonating on its mounts, which are extra-
flexible to help absorb the 2-cylinder's inevitable vibrational
tendencies (despite the balancer shaft...)

If this happens, I just change down sharpish (often 2 gears)

I wouldn't regard it as a fault, just a quirk of the TA design

No issues with my clutch, which just works as it should.



Chris

Had a call from the dealer today to say my car is in bits in the garage and they can't work out what the issue is so they will be throwing a load of new parts in to see if one of them fixes it.

Is any of this likely to affect the price when it comes to trading it in, on the assumption they do actually put something in that fixes it? I've got it on the hire/purchase scheme so not sure if this affects anything?

hi,
" a load of new parts",

not ideal because IF it cures it , you won't really know what was at fault.. as it could've been anything they replaced, retightened on the rebuild,

NO - it shouldn't effect resale..,

if it happens @ 1500 RPM, then that is in the engines normal torque range,
you SHOULD get a change-down light/icon @ 1200??,


Charlie

varesecrazy said:

not ideal because IF it cures it , you won't really know what was at fault.. as it could've been anything they replaced, retightened on the rebuild,

NO - it shouldn't effect resale..,

if it happens @ 1500 RPM, then that is in the engines normal torque range,
you SHOULD get a change-down light/icon @ 1200??,


Charlie

Click to expand...

Hi Charlie,

It doesn't exactly fill me with confidence just trying some new parts, especially as they didn't give me any indication of what they might be either. I'll hopefully find out next week some time though. Glad it won't affect the resale otherwise I'd be asking for a new one straight away

It's around 1500rpm and below but only seems to happen in 4th or 5th. I do indeed get the change down light at 1200rpm. I know it's a totally different engine but the 1.2 500 Pop that I've got as a courtesy car pulls really well at those revs and in fact the display tells me to change up at just above somewhere around 1600rpm (I don't know if this is the exact figure as I've only driven it a couple of times) from 4th to 5th and it feels just fine. I think it has the same gearing as the 5 speed in the Twinair? Might be wrong though.

Turned out to be an engine mount! Bit surprising as it's not even a year old but I guess there must have either been a manufacturing fault or not tightened correctly. Feels much better now.

The popping noise was resolved with some 'adjustments'. Not sure what they were but it's gone.

Hope this helps others if you ever have a similar issue.



John

PS. Please can we have some snow now

beeson100 said:

Turned out to be an engine mount! Bit surprising as it's not even a year old but I guess there must have either been a manufacturing fault or not tightened correctly. Feels much better now.

The popping noise was resolved with some 'adjustments'. Not sure what they were but it's gone.

Hope this helps others if you ever have a similar issue.



John

Click to expand...

Interesting. Despite balancer shafts and so on, mounting a two-cylinder engine is always tricky, especially a vertical twin - the rear engine mount is probably the most complicated piece of engineering in the rear-engined (ie proper) Fiat 500.

beeson100 said:

Turned out to be an engine mount! Bit surprising as it's not even a year old but I guess there must have either been a manufacturing fault or not tightened correctly. Feels much better now.

The popping noise was resolved with some 'adjustments'. Not sure what they were but it's gone.

Hope this helps others if you ever have a similar issue.

John

Click to expand...

you hinted initially that they had all kinds of new parts to put on..,
any idea if other components WERE changed..??,

Charlie

would've like to meet you on our December "pilgrimage" to Silverstone ; https://www.fiatforum.com/events/337358-silverstone-super-sausage-christmas-meat-meet.html