Another VAG Turbo (vane) blockage\failure

[itz_baseline]

Annoying - blocked vanes on the variable turbo. Tried cleaning kits and now need to send away to get a pro to sort\recondition it. £350 down the drain (+ removal, refit and vat).

Just felt like a moan that's all.....

Stupid VAG.

[Mr2Mike]

Well it's not £350 down the drain if you have a working car at the end of it. You could always take off the turbo yourself and free off the vanes, it's not a particularly complex mechanism.

[benjj]

Can you describe what happened before it went?

[itz_baseline]

Sure - issue has been ongoing for a couple month now and progressively getting worse. Sometimes on start up we would drive as normal and 5 minutes into the trip the turbo would cut out and there would be a big loss of power (so it would struggle to even get up to 50mph).

Switch car off and back on again and it would be fine...or sometimes wouldn't work again after 5 mins.

It started off happening on 10% of trips and has slowly got so it's 50% of trips. Engine management light came on last week and whilst it still drives theres a general lack of power\functioning turbo.

Tried various DPF cleaners and although seems to get a little better, it could just be the placebo effect.

Agreed, £350 (or prob £600 after vat and labour) is worth paying to get back on the road....just annoying that someone else's design flaws are costing me money.

It's actually a Mitsubitshi but uses the VAG 140bhp engine.....Mitsubitshi are quoting £1700+ vat + labour for new unit (yeah right!!!)....local indy is removing and sending away for recon...which includes a 12 months warranty.

[AndyNetwork]

Sounds like you may have more than one problem. The sticking vanes does not normally produce a Egine Management warning.

I have been running my VAG TDI for 5 years with a sticky turbo, and have never seen an engine management light.

[benjj]

Thanks for the update OP.

My wife has a 2002 VW Golf TDi 150 and hers has started losing the boost now and again. As said it resets with an off/on quite easily. Her car never really makes long trips and hasn't seen a motorway for a year or more - most driving is up to 60mph on a-roads. Wondering whether to get it looked at or struggle on.

[itz_baseline]

AndyNetwork said:

Sounds like you may have more than one problem. The sticking vanes does not normally produce a Egine Management warning.

I have been running my VAG TDI for 5 years with a sticky turbo, and have never seen an engine management light.

Interesting. Maybe different ECU's report different faults in different ways? What car do you have? I'll ask my local indy what the codes where as he did say he checked and was some kind of turbo error - but I trust him and have no reason to doubt.

benjj said:

Thanks for the update OP.

My wife has a 2002 VW Golf TDi 150 and hers has started losing the boost now and again. As said it resets with an off/on quite easily. Her car never really makes long trips and hasn't seen a motorway for a year or more - most driving is up to 60mph on a-roads. Wondering whether to get it looked at or struggle on.

No problems. We are 2008 @ 68k miles. I'd say it might be worth getting a few bottles of DPF cleaner and dropping a bottle in every 5 tanks of fuel to see what happens. I think mine was just past the point of no return but you might be able to pull yours back.....or if you are thinking of a new car soon just get rid now instead.

[morgrp]

I ran some rhino diesel through a customer's car and told them to stop putting super market derv in it and to thack the living st out of it - cleared after about 3days - yours maybe worse of course

[wheedler]

itz_baseline said:

Agreed, £350 (or prob £600 after vat and labour) is worth paying to get back on the road....just annoying that someone else's design flaws are costing me money.

One of the best comments I read here. £350 is exactly fuk all in car maintenance terms, consider yourself lucky

[itz_baseline]

wheedler said:

itz_baseline said:

Agreed, £350 (or prob £600 after vat and labour) is worth paying to get back on the road....just annoying that someone else's design flaws are costing me money.

One of the best comments I read here. £350 is exactly fuk all in car maintenance terms, consider yourself lucky

I know - especially as the car is paid off and owes us nothing. Sometimes you just need people on here to give you a hug and tell you it's going to be OK....and you are right, if I get a bill for £600 a year to keep it going then it's cheap motoring.

[Mr2Mike]

AndyNetwork said:

Sounds like you may have more than one problem. The sticking vanes does not normally produce a Egine Management warning.

Depends where they stick, a significant overboost condition will flag a fault code and cause limp home operation.

[morgrp]

Mr2Mike said:

Depends where they stick, a significant overboost condition will flag a fault code and cause limp home operation.

^^^ This - I've seen loads that keep going into limp home mode due to a surge of boost -

[J4CKO]

Another one of the hidden costs of running a diesel, chap at work has an S-Max that did this, was faced with a bill but luckily he got it in time to claim under warranty, by about a day.

[wheedler]

J4CKO said:

Another one of the hidden costs of running a diesel, chap at work has an S-Max that did this, was faced with a bill but luckily he got it in time to claim under warranty, by about a day.

I know what your saying, petrol cars never break down.

[Mr2Mike]

wheedler said:

I know what your saying, petrol cars never break down.

They break down, but they don't tend to suffer the very expensive faults that diesels do. Even when fitted, DMFs have an easier life in a petrol, most petrol cars don't have turbos (though this is changing) and they don't have ultra high pressure common rail injection with it's associated reliability issues.