1.8 TSI motor hesitant just after cold start.

[Jazzjames]

Hi all,

My first post here on the forum. Great place, cool community it seems.

So I've owned my mk3 Leon 1.8 TSI for a few months now, and I've noticed that when I drive the car when it's completely cold, it doesn't seem to like light throttle openings, giving inconsistent power. Sometimes the revs fall rather quickly when I lift off, resulting in a bit of a jerking feeling in the cabin. Once the engine is warm it goes away, and the engine is otherwise powerful throughout the rev range.

This is not a big issue, and I'd imagine many "non-car people" wouldn't even notice this, but I want to make sure this isn't the start of a bigger problem. The car is from late 2013, with 50k miles on the clock. It's always been serviced as Seat, and had its last service at 40k before I bought it.


Has anyone else experienced this? I guess this would also be a question to the Cupra owners here, seeing as the engines in our cars are all EA888.

Thanks in advance for your thoughts.

James

 

[Legojon]

Hi, welcome to the forums. Hopefully some MK3 owners will be along shortly. Generally, having owned a petrol and a diesel, I tend to ignore most glitches when running on the cold start map. I've experienced all kinds of weird glitches. My personal favourite with my current car as its mapped quite highly is that if I'm at partial throttle (eg 30%) and rolling along steady and it switches from cold to warm map, I get a sudden surge forward. Which when in nose to tail traffic can be quite fun. But something I've got used to over the time. My diesel was even more fun, it'd just pick whatever revs it felt like when cold.

 

[Jazzjames]

Hi, welcome to the forums. Hopefully some MK3 owners will be along shortly. Generally, having owned a petrol and a diesel, I tend to ignore most glitches when running on the cold start map. I've experienced all kinds of weird glitches. My personal favourite with my current car as its mapped quite highly is that if I'm at partial throttle (eg 30%) and rolling along steady and it switches from cold to warm map, I get a sudden surge forward. Which when in nose to tail traffic can be quite fun. But something I've got used to over the time. My diesel was even more fun, it'd just pick whatever revs it felt like when cold.

Thank you for your reply, that very well could be the answer! I hadn't considered the switching of cold to normal maps.

I look forward to others' opinions and/or experiences.

 

[LouG]

I let the car warm up a bit from stone cold before driving. Give it a try.

 

[R4CK5]

Mist cars I've owned are either sluggish from cold or jerky or both. It's cold and hasn't had a chance to warm up, getting the oil flowing properly etc. If it did it once warm that's when I'd be concerned.

Sent from my SM-G950F using Tapatalk

 

[SeatDan]

I’ve a 1.8 tsi and mine does the exact same when cold sometimes.

 

[exmgman]

My 2013 1.8 FR did exactly as described and despite mentioning this to the dealers service personnel at 3 annual services it was never resolved before I traded in for a 2018 1.8.
However this one has different annoying trait. When trailing along in traffic on a light throttle opening it can't decide whether it should on tickover or not and therefore gives a snatchy ride. I'll get the dealer to check the throttle settings at the service.

 

[Pew.]

It's normal

 

[Jazzjames]

Thank you to all who have replied!

For anyone who arrives at this thread in the future: If you simply start the car and wait for the revs to drop from approx. 1100 rpm (cold start) to the normal idle speed of approx. 800 rpm (warm/normal operation) before you set off, you don't get the interruption in power delivery once moving.