Does anyone know about cars?

[Cartroubles1]

We're due to drive to Europe on Tuesday morning to spend Christmas with my family. We noticed an issue with the car today. When we got into fifth gear it would sometimes vibrate/behave as if it was going to stall. We had to drive home super slowly.

Does anyone know about cars and knows what it could be, and mostly if it's fixable in one day?

I don't even want to think about if we can't go. Hundreds of pounds wasted, two very upset children, and a Christmas at home with no food and barely any presents as it's all there.

Take the car to the garage to have it investigated. Hope all is ok.

Sounds like the gearbox may have gone but the only way of knowing for sure would be to get it looked at first thing tomorrow. Best of luck

Could be the clutch, take it to a garage urgently in the morning, the good news is the no appointment type places do replace clutches if that's what it is. Does it feel like it can't connect?

Is it diesel car or petrol?
Is it OK in 4th?
What's the rev counter doing when it's vibrating in 5th?
Had the check engine light on the dashboard come on?

Thank you, we're hoping the local garage takes it tomorrow morning. It's a diesel car, was mostly OK in the other gears, mostly struggling at the 50/60 mile/hour mark. At first it would occasionally do it, by the end it was pretty much all the time if in 5th gear. Rev normal I think but didn't sound normal, like if you were in too low a gear and about to stall.

The engine light came on a few months ago. Had it checked and all was fine so they assumed it was a mistake. It did come on again a couple of weeks later then disappeared. It's been fine for weeks now, I'd forgotten that had even happened.

DH and my guess is DPF (diesel particulate filter). It's got all gunky and so it's losing power. Needs to be seen by a diesel person at the garage. Try chucking 3 bottles of DPF cleaning fuel additive gunk from Halfords, fill up with premium diesel (the expensive stuff) and absolutely kev it in a low gear at a decent speed on the motorway - keep the revs high. If it won't rev properly its in limp mode and only a garage can fix it.

We had to ring over 20 garages this morning before we found one that accepted taking a look. Everywhere was fully booked with technicians off sick and work up to their eyeballs. We almost gave up.

They diagnosed an issue with the clutch and are waiting to see if they can get the part before the end of the day, so still very much touch and go. Really crossing my fingers.

We're also dealing with no water due to burst pipes and 2 DCs off school due to no water supply, while trying to meet work deadlines before we leave. Having a ball over here!!