hugho
Active member
I was driving up a moderate hill in Salt Lake City yesterday and heard what almost sounded like a muffler explosion or backfire along with a big puff of smoke behind me and sudden loss of boost. I pulled over and cycled the ignition thinking I was in limp mode. No luck. Lost all boost on my gauge and turning it on and off did nothing . I've ended in limp mode a few times before usually climbing steep mountain passes so this was mystifying. All tubes and hoses are connected but a check engine light popped up with a code telling me basically I had lost my turbo. In the last 8 months I have cleaned the IM, installed gauges, removed the EGR, replaced the AT injectors with .184 MT injectors (Car originally had AT, MT installed before I bought it), Cascade Diesel did a #2 tune and the local VW dealer set the IQ after the injector swap. The car has run Beautifully since. It gets over 50 mpg with no smoke and lots of power until yesterday in Utah when we had the little explosion and lost all boost. We were able to drive 400 miles home Ok with reduced power. It drove like my 1982 MB 240D! The car has 258 K miles. I visually and digitally checked the turbo during all this recent work. It spun easily, no significant play and the actuator moved OK. I will check the actuator, the vacuum and peek at the turbo of course but what could have caused the sudden boost loss along with permanent limp mode and kicking a code? Are rebuilt turbos OK? This car is becoming a money pit and the complexity of this engine compared to my other diesels(MB, Cummins trucks, Tractors) is starting to get to me.
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