SMOKEY A4 19 TDI

[Dave Avant]

Hi
Washing the filter defeats the object. The oil is there for the muck to stick too. If there's no oil there's no stiction and therefore no filtering of fine particles only big lumps!!

Yeah, but I didn't totally clean it, just a quick clean to remove the excess. But after you have done a few 1000 miles, whip out the MAF and clean it, you'll probably notice an improvement as it may have a coating of oil on it. Unless you drive in dry dusty environments then getting rid of some of the oil won't do any harm.

[BrendanMC]

Hi Guys,
remember my problems.
I got to the end of it, but feel I have to share the fix with you.
First i have to tell you that i only got the car in December and it had a new timing belt fitted prior to my picking it up, so as we all know the front panel would be put into service position for this.
Anyway, sought loads of expert advise as to why my car was going into limp home mode, had all sorts of answers from the ECU being gubbed to, the MAF, MAP, temp sensors and even a new turbo. so a new MAF, n75 valve and almost £200 lighter and still no joy.
Then a guy tells me i have a leaking turbo pipe, a visually checked them all, to find only a slight seepage of oil where the turbo pipe joins the metal pipe that runs through the front bumper. Anyway the clip tightened a good few turns and i thought problem solved but no. But when I inspected it again a little more seepage, the pipe has a concafe part which runs along it and the turbo pipe had been pushe too far onto the metal pipe, therefore was not sealing on the flat underneath, loosened it moved it back two inches and hey presto, easiest cheapest fix I ever had on an Audi TDI. So if after a service or removal of the from bumper your car does what mine did you now know exactly how to fix it.
Thanks for all your help and ideas.
Brendan

[BrendanMC]

My previous reply was all rubbish. The car went into limp mode a few days later. This time i decided to get my hands dirty and find out exactly what the problem was. I started by getting some details on the turbo and attached a vacuum pipe to the vacuum control unit at the top of the turbo, I now understood how this turbo worked, or should I say, how it was supposed to work. I applied vacuum to this pipe, via the old gob and without the engine running, while having a good old grop arround the actuator control rode, the problem was so abvious. The movement of the control rod was so limited, I would say approx 40% or so. When vacuum was applied it moved up, increase in boost, but failed to go all the way to it's stop, in fact quit a bit away, i could get it all the way but only by using my hand too, and it really was sticky, anyway when vacuum was released the rod returned slowly but again no where near it's full stop. So after going in both directions for maybe half an hour i was getting nowhere. I had to get the turbo cleaned as easily as possible, and went about looking for a simple way to do this. Then I saw my problem solved, I could get to the turbo viens through the EGR Pipe, but what would i use, I know redex. £3.99 and ten minutes later i had removed the EGR pipe at the EGR Valve and proceeded to pour 1/4 of the bottle of redex in, then i applied the vacuum again tp the pipe, hey, the rod came all the way up till the stop, and when vacuum was released, it didn't return slowly but at a very fast rate. Bingo. So in went another 1/4 bottle and i left the car for an hour, refitted the original vacuum pipe and the EGR pipe, which took all of 5 mins. The car now goes like it never did at least with me before, smoother, faster and so much quiter. Considering I was ready to go the £731.00 for the new turbo and £150 to have it fitted. I recon this is a right result. So if you have the same turbo as me, get some redex into it, you could save a bloody fortune.