General Panda juddering? Help...

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General Panda juddering? Help...

Wee Nic

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My husband drives a basic Panda 57 plate. It has been randomly juddering now for about 3 months. It does it when sitting idle and when travelling. At first we thought it was the cold weather but it has got slightly worse. It has been in the fiat dealers 3 times to be checked. The first two times they said they could find nothing wrong and the third time they have said it is the 'engine wiring harness' which will cost £400 to get fixed as it isn't covered under waranty. We absolutely do not trust this dealer though so was wondering if anyone has experienced this juddering problem and if so how did they rectify it? Thanks
 
Not sure if this is of any help but the wifes old 55 plate 1.1 Active developed this juddering, it mainly used to do it when accelerating through the gears - is this what yours does?

Unfortunately I can't remember what they did to the car but it only cost £100 to put right so if they're asking £400 go to another garage!
 
My husband drives a basic Panda 57 plate. It has been randomly juddering now for about 3 months. It does it when sitting idle and when travelling. At first we thought it was the cold weather but it has got slightly worse. It has been in the fiat dealers 3 times to be checked. The first two times they said they could find nothing wrong and the third time they have said it is the 'engine wiring harness' which will cost £400 to get fixed as it isn't covered under waranty. We absolutely do not trust this dealer though so was wondering if anyone has experienced this juddering problem and if so how did they rectify it? Thanks


Do you mean when the engine is just sat running that it slows down and speeds up quite quickly over and over?.. And you get the same sort of spluttering when driving.. where its feels like its not reving up the same as it should (lumpy)..

I'm not a mechanic but the last thing I would think would affect how the engine is running would be the wiring harness...
My guess is someone has tried to run a test with the computer gear and the readings aren't as they expect them to be so either it or them suggest its the harness.
(I had a home tester for my old car and it used to say things like throttle swtich faulty or wiring just because I didn't bother doing the throttle test when going through it)

Bad idling and hesitation when reving can be many many things - spark plugs need changing, blocked fuel lines/filter, blocked air filter, leaking manifold, and with modern cars could be any of the sensors playing up (often the one on the exhaust), could just be the HT wiring...

Your not the first person I've heard lately that has been told its the wiring harness.. ! My daughter drives a Clio and was told hers was the fault, took it in to the garage, they "did the work" and the car drove out of the gararge ok for about 1 mile... broke down and she then took it to another garage who found that they had tried to glue the fuel injector together (which was the real original fault) and it obviously didn't work for long !

Steve
 
Until you have confirmation that all the spark plugs are set correctly and functioning correctly then do not pay out for a harness. There are lots of basic checks to undertake beforehand as mentioned above. Could be spark plugs, air filter, sensors, dirty fuel lines, bad electircal connection etc etc.

I'd try a new set of spark plugs, particularly if the issue is worse when under load (accelerating up a hill for instance) as you might have an incorrectly set or a duff spark plug. Might be worth using some petrol additive like Redex to clean out the injectors etc if its been run on a diet of supermarket fuel, and even try some superunleaded like Shell V-Power. It migth cost £4 more for a tank fill, but it will do the engine internals the world of good.
 
Thank you very much, I think we will give it a go. The new development is that the engine warning light keeps going on and off now and when it is doing this the juddering is worse!
 
Sounds like your oxygen sensors, mine was the same (the warning light and juddering). You probably need to have it put on a computer to see what error codes are stored in the system. If it is the oxygen sensors, a new could be as cheap as £25 and about £15 to have fitted. I got an NTK (NGK) one for £45 and had it fitted for £15 and it made the world of difference.
 
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