Need advice - please help new member

[PJAMES]

Hi everyone.? I am new to this club and infact new to message boards in general, so please excuse any mistakes, or if I have posted this in the wrong section.
I have just purchased a Golf mk4? year 2000 and I am very happy with it apart from 2 little problems.? Firstly, when engine is idling, it seems to run slightly rough (intermittently spluttering as if it is about to stall).? The strange thing is that when this is happening I can sometimes feel the accelerator pedal moving (on it's on, honest) by a couple of centimeters.? It doesn't seem to matter if the engine is hot or cold.? I have just had the car serviced and so the plugs, leads etc should all be ok.? The second problem is that first and second gears are a little difficult to engage (mainly first gear).? All the other gears seem fine including reverse.
Any help or advice would be greatly appreciated.
Thank you very much.

[topher]

Welcome to the forum mate. Which engine does your car have ? It'll help us to diagnose your problem, there are different common faults for the different engines.
I've heard horror stories about people having to replace entire gearboxes on mk4 golfs but don't start crying just yet, someone here should be able to tell you how to test certain things !

[PJAMES]

Hi, thanks for the quick reply.? It is a 1.6 litre engine (hope this still qualifies for help as not a GTI).?

[piggy]

Firstly Welcome.

Secondly, if you've just had it serviced TAKE IT BACK!
Doesn't sound like they did too good a job. They should be able to advise you.

[PJAMES]

Hi,

I will try and take car back to garage where service was done but I am not very confident and I don't know that I will be able to argue my case if they don't want to help.

For anyone interested I had a look through the forum for similar problems and tried a couple of things so I will let you know what I did and found in case it provides anymore clues.

Before I go on please note that I have limited mechanical knowledge and experience so I did not go too far!

Firstly the gear shift problem.  I removed the gear knob cover and adjusted the plates slightly.  The plastic 'stops' on the gear leaver were a bit chewed on the left side so I sanded them down and greased the whole area to try and make the shift it to 1st as smooth as possible.  It is difficult to say if it made much difference as I did not get to drive the car but I will let you know if this helps.

Secondly, the engine idle/accelerator pedal moving problem.  I had a look at the cable that moves when the accelerator pedal is pressed and it seemed a bit too loose (when there is no pressure on the pedal) so I removed the clip and tightened it by one notch.  This didn't really have any effect.  I also noticed why the pedal seems to move on it's own.  I will try and describe what I saw using laymans terms so I don't blame you if you don't understand.  At the back of the engine, where you can see the silver wire part of the accelerator cable, and it goes over a plastic circular part, you can just about see a metal coil or spring looking object which is at 90 degres to the end of the accelerator cable.  As the engine idles, this part occasionally shudders and this movement hits the accelerator cable end and slightly pulls the cable which is what is making the pedal move, I think.  I don't know if this helps in any way but I thought I would mention it.  Also just to make matters worse, the engine stalls at traffic lights etc for the first 5 mins of driving.  I have thought that maybe I should clean the throttle body.  Is this easy? (with my limited knowledge).

Any advice is appreciated.

Thank you