Anyone know what could be wrong? Seat Ibiza

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Hi folks,

I've a 00 Seat Ibiza 1 litre

When I bought it it needed a new clutch, grand, the local mechanic who's been doing the family's cars for years replaced it. That was October.

Three weeks ago as I was driving to work I lost the ability to make the car move. There was still power in the engine, but accelerating wasn't doing anything, it was revving ok.

I called my Aviva breakdown people and the fella told me the drive shaft had come out. It's held in with bolts (exclusive to Seat/VWs apparently? is this true?), and they'd come loose, and the shaft had disengaged from it's fittings. He fixed it and away I went. He told me to bring it to the mechanic.

Now, when he was working on it he asked me if I'd recently had the clutch done, that he thought that when the work was being done on the clutch, the mechanic didn't do the job properly. Could that be the case?

I took it to the mechanic, and he put brand new bolts in, and some kind of nylon hardening stuff, to keep them in place and make sure they don't come loose again. That was Saturday and the car felt better than ever.

This morning as I was driving to work I noticed that the gear stick was doing a lot of shaking, it was hard to get the car moving, I have to give it a lot of gas, and it doesn't take off as smoothly or as quickly as normal, going into second gear and it looses speed, chugs a bit, then the gear change seems to kick in, again though, takes much more time than normal to pick up speed, once I'm in third gear it starts to feel normal, and then into fourth and it's running better, but still very sluggish (for example, I normally have no problem getting the car up to 120 on the M1 between the airport and Swords, I was stuck at 100 the whole stretch this morning, it felt like the car was on a hill), and all the time, a huge shake/rattle in the gear stick.

Driving home from work, and coming out of an industrial estate, I changed down from 3rd to 2nd approaching the exit gate, and the car chugged and totally cut out. I got it going again, same issues as before getting it to 4th gear, when I was coming to roundabouts and changing down the gears I had to keep giving it gas just to keep the car going, it was as if the gear changed weren't taking. When I came to a run of speed bumps I changed down to 3rd, slowed down, and again, the car nearly cut out when I came off the accelerator as I was going over the bump.

Does anyone think the whole thing is related?

I don't know very much about cars, but I'll answer all questions as best I can.

The mechanic is not available this evening.

Thanks folks.

Gary ITR

There's definitely an issue in the drivetrain somewhere, I'd bring it to another mechanic and get a second opinion if I were you.

I reckon you have ignition problems too.

Gary ITR

RoverJames wrote: »

I reckon you have ignition problems too.

Is the '00 1ltr Ibiza on coilpacks or a dizzy? The Vag dizzys were always fairly strong but they do like eating coilpacks

Onkle

Onkle wrote: »

Is the '00 1ltr Ibiza on coilpacks or a dizzy? The Vag dizzys were always fairly strong but they do like eating coilpacks

Not a clue, have never lifted the bonnet on one

stevenmu

The newest problem sounds very much like an ignition coil failure, if so I wouldn't think it would be connect to the previous problem. Although it's possible the mechanic could have knocked loose the HT cable from the coil which would seem very much like it failed, but the coils are prone to failure in them anyway.

stevenmu

Onkle wrote: »

Is the '00 1ltr Ibiza on coilpacks or a dizzy? The Vag dizzys were always fairly strong but they do like eating coilpacks

Coilpacks, I'd a '97 that chewed through 2 iirc.

Edit: just to add the symptoms were pretty much the same, rough and low on power and prone to stalling at low revs, running more normally a higher revs. The vibrating gear lever is I believe due to cylinder not firing, or not firing correctly causing the engine to vibrate.

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Thanks lads, at least I can say to the mechanic what it might be.