Sudden loss of power and oil in intercooler

New TDI owner here!

I think I have a busted turbo, but it may just be my simple Mustang owner's brain jumping to conclusions.

I was accelerating onto the freeway yesterday in 4th gear around 3600rpm and ~80% throttle when I lost almost all power and could only maintain ~60mph in 4th/5th gear. The exhaust sound immediately got louder through all RPMs and later I could smell burnt oil as well. The RPMs seemed to jump around a lot accelerating through 1st/2nd on the short ride home. After getting home and putting the car on jack stands there is a lot of oil sprayed around the front passenger wheel and dripping out of the intercooler, which is new. I took it for a short drive to AutoZone for a scan and it returned a p1556 (charge pressure negative) code and a MAF code (which I had expected because the MAF was unplugged to diagnose a potential MAF failure). The ride to and from AutoZone was very jerky in the lower RPMs/gears and there was a slight grinding sound as it bounced around the RPM range.

The ride to AutoZone after unplugging the MAF there was no increase in power, just a slightly smoother ride with less variance of RPM

I'm thinking an oil seal failed in the turbo, am I crazy?

No, you're not crazy. Check the oil level in the engine. If it is down significantly (any sudden loss, like moving 1mm or more down the dipstick on a short drive), you need to fix the turbocharger. That is, replace it with a new one or a known good used one. If it is just some oil in the intercooler, then drain it and maybe you'll be fine.

If you drive it with oil being blown into the intake plenum, then quit driving it. As in, don't start it at all. You risk ingestion of a quantity of oil that will cause hydrolock, which if searched, will show many results, all of them bad.

You'll need to check the impeller side of the turbocharger to ensure you didn't blow a bunch of metal schrapnel into the intake side of things. If there is any evidence of such, then you'll need to clean all the plumbing as well as the intercooler. Evidence would include evidence of recent scraping on the impeller or the housing around the impeller.

Hopefully you will have caught the problem before it has killed the engine with hydrolock.

Good luck!

PH

It's also possible he blew a hose off the Intercooler..... DO inspect carefully to make sure the plumbing is ok before you start taking the turbo off!

Powder Hound said:

No, you're not crazy. Check the oil level in the engine. If it is down significantly (any sudden loss, like moving 1mm or more down the dipstick on a short drive), you need to fix the turbocharger. That is, replace it with a new one or a known good used one. If it is just some oil in the intercooler, then drain it and maybe you'll be fine.

If you drive it with oil being blown into the intake plenum, then quit driving it. As in, don't start it at all. You risk ingestion of a quantity of oil that will cause hydrolock, which if searched, will show many results, all of them bad.

You'll need to check the impeller side of the turbocharger to ensure you didn't blow a bunch of metal schrapnel into the intake side of things. If there is any evidence of such, then you'll need to clean all the plumbing as well as the intercooler. Evidence would include evidence of recent scraping on the impeller or the housing around the impeller.

Hopefully you will have caught the problem before it has killed the engine with hydrolock.

Good luck!

PH

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I've driven less than 10 miles with this loss of power and dont plan on driving it until i can replace the turbo.

The oil has gone down slightly but still covers 75% of the hashed area

Befor you resign yourself to replacing the turbo, please remember there is always a little oil in the IC (maybe a tablespoon or two) due to the CCV cap pipe that attaches to the turbo intake pipe. The oil may have collected there from the lack of performing the Italian Tuneup on a regular basis. Our ALH engines need to be "blown out" on a regular basis to make sure we don't run into hydro locking or runaway engine scenarios, as well as getting the carbon blown out of the turbo vanes.
But if the turbo shaft has a lot of play in it or looks like it may have hit the inducer inlet, then yes I would be considering a replacement turbo as the amount of oil they pass will only get worse and never better.

Wait a minute. Slow down. Since you didn't address Genesis' comment, here it is again a little more wordy. You may have only suffered separation of an intake hose under the pressure from the turbo. You say the intercooler is new, so the intake has been apart recently; therefore, it's quite possible that a hose didn't get seated well and has separated. Your comment that oil sprayed all over the right wheel well, which is exactly where the intercooler is, also supports intake separation in this area. I don't see how a turbo leaking oil into the intake sprays oil all over the right wheel well, if the intake is fully intact. So start with the intake plumbing, then move to the turbo.

Brett

I agree with brett! If you have lost boost and have oil spraying all over.... sounds like some piping is split,lose, or blown off. You could blow a turbo and fill the intake with oil and still not have a drop on the ground or engine bay. Just cover your bases before you spend too much money.

I agree with the above detached hose comments as I experienced this myself. The short, lower hose on the IC had popped off resulting in loss of power and lots of black smoke. Don't know if the OP's ALH has the same hose connections as my BEW.
P101 was the DTC that had shown up on my Ultra Gauge.

I cut the pan cake pipe on mine and it was nasty inside as well!
Lotsa oil! But my VN17 only has about 40 k on it!

On the other hand I just recently re-did the timing belt on the '03 in my profile and there was only a light FILM of oil in the pancake pipe when I removed it to do the job. ZERO came out when it was stood on-end.

So no, they don't all leak much, and incidentally that's the ORIGINAL turbo on the car with more than 200k miles on the clock.... My kid's the driver and from the lack of liquid oil in the pipe I will make the assumption she stomps the loud pedal regularly

Brett San Diego said:

Wait a minute. Slow down. Since you didn't address Genesis' comment, here it is again a little more wordy. You may have only suffered separation of an intake hose under the pressure from the turbo. You say the intercooler is new, so the intake has been apart recently; therefore, it's quite possible that a hose didn't get seated well and has separated. Your comment that oil sprayed all over the right wheel well, which is exactly where the intercooler is, also supports intake separation in this area. I don't see how a turbo leaking oil into the intake sprays oil all over the right wheel well, if the intake is fully intact. So start with the intake plumbing, then move to the turbo.

Brett

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The intercooler is not new, the leak from the intercooler is. I phrased it a bit weird in my initial post. I'm going to look around for misplaced hoses in the morning.

Nevada_TDI said:

Befor you resign yourself to replacing the turbo, please remember there is always a little oil in the IC (maybe a tablespoon or two) due to the CCV cap pipe that attaches to the turbo intake pipe. The oil may have collected there from the lack of performing the Italian Tuneup on a regular basis. Our ALH engines need to be "blown out" on a regular basis to make sure we don't run into hydro locking or runaway engine scenarios, as well as getting the carbon blown out of the turbo vanes.
But if the turbo shaft has a lot of play in it or looks like it may have hit the inducer inlet, then yes I would be considering a replacement turbo as the amount of oil they pass will only get worse and never better.

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I'm aware of the oil pooling that can happen in the intercooler, but this is an instantaneous change. Immediately after I had the sudden loss of power getting onto the freeway and parked it, I noticed oil pooling under the intercooler, a puddle about 5 inches wide, with drops all the way up the driveway. When I unscrewed the bottom 10mm bolt to look into the vanes of the intercooler from underneath the car, I saw the inside of the intercooler drenched in oil. It was not oil that settled into the bottom of the plastic air piping, it was coming from the top of the intercooler, if that makes sense.

Maybe you broke the intercooler. Ends are plastic and will separate from the core, especially if they've been bumped against a curb a few times, which is easy to do. Intercooler shouldn't leak regardless of oil level.

Sounds like you have a bad turbo?
The pancake pipe on the bottom of the intercooler is heading towards the intake!
So any oil in it must have come from the turbo!

IndigoBlueWagon said:

Maybe you broke the intercooler. Ends are plastic and will separate from the core, especially if they've been bumped against a curb a few times, which is easy to do. Intercooler shouldn't leak regardless of oil level.

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but even if the intercooler was bypassed I would still have the oil leak there. The only thing that makes sense in my head is the cold side oil seal failing and dumping oil from the turbo into the intake air flow that is then blown through the intercooler.

It is too much of a coincidence for me to write off the (new) oil leak as just a normal part of the process when I also have lost all power and it rides rough as all hell after something breaking on the freeway.

brett: all the hoses are seated correctly on the intake side

There is no other intake from the turbo to the inter cool except the turbo!

If the intake is fully intact, then where is the oil coming from? That's a strange one.

If it were me, I would remove the charge side hose from the turbo and check if there are obvious signs of oil from the turbo into the charge hose, then check play in the turbine. If there's no obvious play, and you're not convinced there's oil from the turbo by visual inspection, then maybe put the charge hose back on the turbo and leave it disconnected on the other side and have someone start it briefly while observing to see if any oil discharges from the open hose or if there are any off sounds from the turbo.

I don't remember, did you say you lost significant oil from the sump? If that's the case, then maybe it is the turbo dumping oil from a bad seal. But, how is it spraying into the right wheel well?

Brett

It must be a crack in the cooler or in the hose connection?

I have the same issue as the OP. I checked the CEL code and came up with the O2 sensor in bank 1 as a fault. Could that be causing my issue?

Grave Robber said:

but even if the intercooler was bypassed I would still have the oil leak there. The only thing that makes sense in my head is the cold side oil seal failing and dumping oil from the turbo into the intake air flow that is then blown through the intercooler.

It is too much of a coincidence for me to write off the (new) oil leak as just a normal part of the process when I also have lost all power and it rides rough as all hell after something breaking on the freeway.

brett: all the hoses are seated correctly on the intake side

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are you SURE? .....a partialy loose connection can be easy to miss.

sardo_67 said:

I have the same issue as the OP. I checked the CEL code and came up with the O2 sensor in bank 1 as a fault. Could that be causing my issue?

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No but excessive oil consumption will ruin an o2 sensor.

sardo_67 said:

I have the same issue as the OP. I checked the CEL code and came up with the O2 sensor in bank 1 as a fault. Could that be causing my issue?

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maxmoo said:

No but excessive oil consumption will ruin an o2 sensor.

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We are talking about an ALH here, right? (Hint: no O2 sensor.)

i have a BEW

flee said:

We are talking about an ALH here, right? (Hint: no O2 sensor.)

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Original thread, a few days ago, was an ALH, sardo is asking about a BEW.
Both TDIs, completely different fueling

sardo_67, time to update!

Okay, big update:

I replaced the turbo with a garret OE replacement and found out that when the car previously had a turbo replaced (5 years ago, diff owner) the shop installed the wrong turbo, a KP36 turbo, and it was an off-brand (Korea brand, ~$350 on eBay) that they overcharged the owner $800 for. The turbo had a lot of endplay on the shaft and there was quite a bit of oil on the compression side of the shaft. On top of that, the bolts holding on the exhaust manifold were only finger tight. This was from a "reputable" diesel shop.

Anyways, one 17 hour day later and its all installed (including new vacuum lines and a thorough cleaning of the intake), and the same damn issue is happening.

I do some more looking around and a common issue that causes similar symptoms is a bad MAF sensor, so I replace it, the same problem persists.

It still throws the P1556 code and has shuddering engine performance until the CEL comes on (I'm thinking the computer starts ignoring an erroneous reading at that point) and sluggish power all the way throughout

The only thing I can think of that would cause this issue after all that work and replacing/cleaning is the EGR valve itself. It was clogged up quite a bit (1/4-1/3" build up). I don't have the equipment to check the vacuum to check its function, but I can't think of anything else that would cause the issue.

I have thought of doing an EGR delete before on this car, and this would be a good time for it (if this is the problem part), but the info out there seems to be conflicting. Do I need anything more than just a tune, or do I need to do the race pipe, vacuum line rerouting, coolant rerouting, and tune?


EDIT: I also checked all the intake hoses during the replacement of the turbo, no cracks in any, they all seem fairly new actually

I did the EGR delete and sent the ECU in and had them do the EGR Delete and a MPG tune as well!

Take a look in the intake manifold itself. It may be time to clean it thoroughly.
There is no need to remove the EGR if it is working properly and it will be an
issue when it comes time for a smog inspection.
Also, you used a new Bosch MAF, right?

Somehow, you got oil spraying from the intake with the old turbo. Did you find and fix the breach in the intake? There is no doubt that your intake has (or had) a breach if oil exited the intake piping and ended up all over your wheel well. Is there enough of a breach to cause the low pressure fault?

What about the manifold pressure sensor? Could a wonky sensor result in false low readings to the computer causing a false fault code. Is there a way to independently measure the intake pressure to verify things?

If the EGR valve is clogged up, then you have the same amount of accreted carbon in the intake manifold as well. I second flee's comment to check your intake manifold for carbon build up. But, you would expect overboost with a clogged intake since the air can't flow, not your underboost condition. Still, check your intake plenum for good measure.

Brett