[patallen]

Hi. I am not new to front end shake or vibration, my other cars are BMW and believe me ive seen it all...i even bought myself a tire balancing machine and a mechanalysis vibration analyser...bad brakes, semi seized calipers, wrong rims, bad tires, loose components,...everything can be suspicious...

Ive seen it all until i bought that Jetta.

The best i can describe is, when the engine is under load, ie more than 1/4 of the padal approx, i feel like if the engine was rocking left/right/left/right all the time, like if one of the axle was bent, causing a weird low pace shake. It happens mostly only under 40mph or so. If i coast or dont press the pedal it totaly disapear. It literally feels like if someone was pushing on the side of the car to make it rocks.

When i bought that car the tires was worn out very unevenly on its edge, and very scuffed, probably because of that weird situation.
So i have installed a brand new set of winter tires, road-force installed on a brand new GSP9700 tire balancing machine, with rebound value less than 3 on all of them (very very low !!, normaly you can see 8-12 on brand new tires) So it is not a tire/rim issue.

Front end feels tight, unless i dont see it, balljoints feels tight, no loose bearings or so...

What could it be ?
-bad axle ?
-unknown front end component loose ?(altough i realy doubt it can create such shake by itself)
-bad hub ?

I was wondering if this was inherent to a FWD car...last FWD car ive owned was a 1985 Escort...since then i only owned RWD cars.

 

[Seatman]

Maybe an engine mount? If it's a manual you could try putting the car in gear with the hand brake on, then balancing on the biting point while someone watches the engine to see if it rocks under torque. If it's an automatic you'll just have to try rocking it the best you can. You could also jack up the front end and support the car on axle stands, start the car and put it in 4th or 5th then gently let out the clutch and have a look at the driveshafts in motion but take care. It's deffinitely not normal in fwd cars.

 

[chittychittybangbang]

Please add Jetta to your profile under car, I had to search your posts to be reminded what car this is on. Look under "user control panel" at the blue bar at the top of the page, and "edit your details".

It's certainly not a FWD thing or torque steer. I would say to check the motor mounts as breaking the passenger side motor mount is a common problem when someone does the timing belt job incorrectly and reuses the bolts or overtightens them. However, your tire problem suggests a suspension issue.

If it were an axle problem I would think it would also show up under coasting and light load and high speed. I would think a bad hub would also cause the same problem.

You said that the front end feels tight and you checked the bearings so all I could say is check them again. Is the suspension stock? How many miles? If the struts are totally blown I could see it causing a tire wear issue. And the rear suspension looks fine too?

Could it be a flywheel problem? Possible but this is just a guess. These cars use dual mass flywheels which often have problems.

 

[patallen]

Please add Jetta to your profile under car, I had to search your posts to be reminded what car this is on. Look under "user control panel" at the blue bar at the top of the page, and "edit your details".

It's certainly not a FWD thing or torque steer. I would say to check the motor mounts as breaking the passenger side motor mount is a common problem when someone does the timing belt job incorrectly and reuses the bolts or overtightens them. However, your tire problem suggests a suspension issue.

If it were an axle problem I would think it would also show up under coasting and light load and high speed. I would think a bad hub would also cause the same problem.

You said that the front end feels tight and you checked the bearings so all I could say is check them again. Is the suspension stock? How many miles? If the struts are totally blown I could see it causing a tire wear issue. And the rear suspension looks fine too?

Could it be a flywheel problem? Possible but this is just a guess. These cars use dual mass flywheels which often have problems.

I will add jetta next to 2003 tdi :dunno

i got a friend who work in a garage with a lot of business/volume, i asked him since i know he repairs a lot of VW, and he owned several himselfs, he had similar issue with a Passat, it turned out to be an axle for sure. It was pushing against the transmission under load. He replaced the axle and it went perfect.

I will check the motor mount. since i had it out for the t-belt, maybe i dicked that one out, but i would be very very surprised that i did that wrong.

 

[Seatman]

Lol you sound like me, never make mistakes etc. I inherited perfect genes and am also always right. NOT!

 

[patallen]

Lol you sound like me, never make mistakes etc. I inherited perfect genes and am also always right. NOT!

when i do mistake, i always admit them. When someone doubt about me, then its different...:dunno

fwiw, on another forum, when i asked about details on theses TDI, everyone, i mean, every-ones warned me...
a-i will not be able to do the t-belt change
b-i will get disastrous results
c-it cannot be done without the tools
d-i was a dumb (simply because i ask)

well, that was enough to start making me doubt about myself, altough i have 25+ years of experience mostly on german and exotic cars...

So...
I did rebuild the head
I did rebuild the turbo and fixed the VNT mechanism
I did the t-belt change WITHOUT the tools.
...in a weekend...
Car started almost immediately. Since a lot of crapy peoples had grown a doubt in me, i didnt hesitated to throw 300$ to buy a VCDS, just to check the timing. Turned out to be period perfect, right in the upper range.

...i dont think i broke an engine mount...

but i will check !!!!!! :laugh: