I have a 2001 ALH TDI with about 300,000 miles on it. It seemed to be running fine starting fine until I took it out on the road and found it had no power. I found the turbo vanes were stuck so I repaired that issue. Then the car would not rev past 3,000 sputtering and missing and smoking clouds of white smoke.
I tried different MAF sensors but the same result. When I unhooked the EGR vacuum the revs and power came back but when it is throttled to about 3,000 and back repeatedly and quickly, the engine will suddenly start making weird howling sputtering sounds in the intake like the turbo is doing something strange and the engine will start chugging and missing very bad. Sometimes the miss is so bad the engine will die if I let the throttle off. The engine puts out clouds of white smoke. When I go to restart the engine it sounds like the valves are all open with no compression (if the ASV is closed, a vacuum is created when cranking the engine, thus like no compression). Within about 10 seconds the engine will always start and idle smooth again with no problems. I can repeat this issue over and over but does seem to get better when it is warm.
Has anyone experience such a problem? My one guess it sounds like the valves are sticking and messing with the turbo flows. But I am stumped, if the valves were sticking why it would not act up under full throttle or idle. It only acts up when I keep punching the throttle back and forth. The other thought was it was the injection pump going out.
The other weird part is I can't seem to find a way to hook up the EGR. If I do connect the vacuum tube it doesn't like to rev past 3,000 again and has no power.
Just for the record, I never really had this car on the road but bought it with some body damage so I don't know much about its history other than it was being driven before the accident.
Any ideas to verify what is wrong before I tear the engine down and find nothing wrong but a bad injection pump?
I admit, I have not read every response to this Thread starter post. So, if I've missed something, my apologies.
I believe you were having a combo of problems. 3000 RPMs is about Limp Mode for an under boost from the Turbo. Just curious if there were any DTCs. Thus, a cleaned Turbo (Vanes, etc.) doesn't necessarily mean that those Vanes aren't scrubbing the back plate in the housing...seen this a number of times.
Loads of white smoke and hard starting is pretty good indication that the ASV on the EGR is sticking shut. Or there is a tremendous overloading of fuel while cranking the engine (which I doubt).
Now that you have the head off, you can see there were no valves sticking causing the Turbo to not function properly. Remember, the pistons are chasing the Exhaust Valves shut on the exhaust cycle. In other words, about the time the exhaust valve closes, bam, the piston is at TDC. So, a sticky valve would have got smashed by a piston.
My 2000 Jetta is pushing 370k miles. I'd say the lifters, valve stems, cam, etc., are all worn about like yours. However, it starts and runs quite well.
So, what are the DTCs? There have to be codes!
