Several irritating problems - any ideas?

[Hank]

I've got three irritating problems on my Dec 2011 mk6 GTI, which the dealer can't seem to sort out for me.
Looking for some ideas or if anyone else has seen anything similar.

First one is a really bad wheel judder in the 80-90 mph speed range. Steering wheel bucks in my hands especially under heavy acceleration. Even passengers can feel the car shuddering until I get above 90 when it seems to decrease a lot, although not completely. I've had the wheels balanced and that seemed to help a bit but not significantly.

Second thing is on motorways journeys, the DSG gearbox sometimes won't drop into 6th gear, so I end up driving in 5th until I spot the problem and switch to manual for a minute to go down into 6th. An engine switch off seems to fix this for a bit.

Final one is an EPC engine warning light in conjunction with an oil pressure warning light and message and the vehicle goes into safe mode and won't let me do more than 4000 revs. This happens when I have the DSG in sport mode and give it the beans, engine revs to about 7000 and then this warning light comes on. I've had three different dealers look at this and none of them can even see the error in the logs!

Anyone seen any of these?
Cheers
Hank

[AndyG]

Hank,have you had the vehicle since new?I am just wondering if perhaps its been in a bump before you got it.If you have had it since new it's the dealers problem not yours.

[Neil gti]

Hank

I had a wheel wobble at them speeds and had the wheels balanced which helped a little bit, took the car to another garage a week later and tried again, the 2nd time cured the problem 
If you have 5mm spacers on this WILL cause a wheel wobble because they are not hubcentric (i tried 3 different makes) 10mm spacers are fine aslong as they are hubcentric (ie: with a lip on them that wheel sits on to keep them dead centre)

The gearbox problem sounds like a mechatronics problem ?

No idea on the warning lights 

[mkviken]

swap your wheels front to back and this will help identify if its the wheels/tyres causing it. you shouldn't get the same vibration if a dodgy wheel/tyre is on the back of the car

[Hank]

I've had the car from new and it's not had a bump.
I like the idea of swapping the wheels round, never thought of that, it's even something I can do on my own (probably)

Thanks also for the tip on the balancing, worth looking into too.

I'll persevere with the dealer about the EPC light, but that's a real problem and it's something I can almost recreate on demand. It doesn't give me any confidence when I drop it into sport and try to blow past a queue of traffic

Thanks for the helpful responses
Cheers
Hank

[PenguinGTI]

Definitely give the wheels a swap. I had a noise coming from the rear of the car that sounded like a wheel bearing but ended up being the tyres (oddly ). Didn't find it until I ended up changing the tyres at the back.

[Snoopy]

Definitely give the wheels a swap. I had a noise coming from the rear of the car that sounded like a wheel bearing but ended up being the tyres (oddly ). Didn't find it until I ended up changing the tyres at the back.

I posted about this a few weeks back known issue especially as vw seem to send them out of the factory with large setup suspension differences. I have this too.

[JonnyG]

As above .. the wheels are likely to just need a good balance. Try and find a good wheel balancing machine that does full dynamic balancing (Costco machines have always been good for me).  I had a similar problem and it took three goes to get them balanced properly.

The other faults sound quite serious and I'd push your dealer, and even VW UK, to get these sorted.  I think a VW "promise" is to have a VW techy accompany you on a test drive where you can point out the faults - you could ask for that ?

[Hank]

Just thought I'd update this after a visit to my new local repair centre. Got fed up with the main dealer, so tried a recently opened vw repair centre. They are a joy to deal with and I got an engineer to drive out with me so I could show him the faults.

The wheel wobble was a definite balancing problem and when I picked it up the guy said they were out by a mile, despite being balanced by Kwik Fit only a week before. So won't be using them again. The wobble is gone and it's like driving a new car again, very pleased.

The oil pressure warning light was identified as a faulty switch and they've ordered a new one, which is being fitted on Tuesday. I recreated the problem before I dropped it off and then didn't switch the engine off until they drove it into the service bay - no problem with them not finding the error in the logs then, it was still on the dash.

The gear box issue not dropping into Sixth, was referred to VW who recommended a software update, which they've applied and I've been asked to keep an eye on it. It hasn't recurred so far, so hopefully that's an end to that problem too!

One top of all that they gave it a full valet, inside and out! So I'll certainly be taking it back there again. The only downside is that theyre a Toyota dealer and I was given an Aygo for the day

[Mr GTD]

Just thought I'd update this after a visit to my new local repair centre. Got fed up with the main dealer, so tried a recently opened vw repair centre. They are a joy to deal with and I got an engineer to drive out with me so I could show him the faults.

The wheel wobble was a definite balancing problem and when I picked it up the guy said they were out by a mile, despite being balanced by Kwik Fit only a week before. So won't be using them again. The wobble is gone and it's like driving a new car again, very pleased.

The oil pressure warning light was identified as a faulty switch and they've ordered a new one, which is being fitted on Tuesday. I recreated the problem before I dropped it off and then didn't switch the engine off until they drove it into the service bay - no problem with them not finding the error in the logs then, it was still on the dash.

The gear box issue not dropping into Sixth, was referred to VW who recommended a software update, which they've applied and I've been asked to keep an eye on it. It hasn't recurred so far, so hopefully that's an end to that problem too!

One top of all that they gave it a full valet, inside and out! So I'll certainly be taking it back there again. The only downside is that theyre a Toyota dealer and I was given an Aygo for the day

  what gearbox was you given manual or MMT(auto) my mrs has the MMT and it is shocking, we actually rejected one Aygo cus it was so bad...