Right to walk away? 2.0TDI Vibration After Braking

redsheeps

Test drove a 2015 A5 2.0TDI with about 100k km (not miles).

All seemed 100%, smooth acceleration, gear changes, engine bay clean as a whistle etc. I'm used to 1.9TDI Passats/Superbs of the PD generation and it was significantly smoother than those engines.

The only thing that seemed off was literally just after bringing the car to a stop, there would be a sort of surging vibration that would occur 3-4 times and gradually reduced in strength until it stopped. Each vibration lasted about 1-2 seconds with about 1-2 second gaps between each one.

The vibration was strong enough that the passenger could feel it. It was a consistent vibration and not a judder, if that makes any sense, as in it wasn't anything like the judder you get if you're in too high a gear and your car is close to cutting out. If you put your hand on the average food blender, the first vibration was a decent bit stronger than that. It felt strongest in the pedals.

There were no vibrations when reving the car to the limiter, accelerating, slowing the car down, no clutch judder on take off, no clutch judder when trying to catch the bite etc. I've driven a car with a dodgy fly wheel and it was nothing like that. Literally the only time it vibrated like this was immediately after the car was brought to a complete stop whether it was brought to stop from 100kmph or I moved it 3 meters at 5kmph. It would only happen when moving forward and never occurred when stopping the car while reversing.

I said it to the garage who had one of their mechanics check it out. He came back to say it couldn't be anything serious in his opinion but couldn't explain what it was. So I walked away.

Curious if anyone might know what it could have been?

colm_mcm

Could be brake discs. Not a big deal if so.
What would concern me is that they shrugged the issue off.

Buddy Bubs

Yep, there's plenty of other A5s out there. I've an A6 of the same age, similar mileage and likely similar mechanics and don't have anything like you describe. Keep looking, you have options

redsheeps

colm_mcm wrote: »

Could be brake discs. Not a big deal if so.
What would concern me is that they shrugged the issue off.

Just curious, but in terms of it possibly being brake discs, it only vibrated AFTER the car came to a COMPLETE stop. It didn't happen AS the car was slowing down to stop. Could that still be brake discs?

colm_mcm

Not if you were stopped. I’d imagine that’s traction/stability control/ABS making the brakes go on and off.

Shouldn’t happen obvs