Sharan leaking air

[vwluke]

Hi guys, just bought a vw sharan 2003, 1.9tdi. Driving it home and i can hear like a large air leak, sounds like it is coming from the front of the engine. The car seems to pull very well, but ive got no idea what this noise is.
Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance.

[the_old_diver]

Is he noise the same level at all engine speeds or is it worse at say 1900 rpm during acceleration?

[vwluke]

Its worse at 1900 rpm upwards.

[the_old_diver]

My 97 AHU engined Sharan, 206000 miles on the clock, "sighs" very loudly between 1900 and 2100 when accelerating, and then quietens down again. It has done it for 14,000 miles now, ever since I got it, but as I've got 49 mpg overall - total miles divided by total gallons - I'm not too worried. I would like to fix it though and I think it might be boost air leaking out somewhere in the intercooler circuit. I also get the dead response over about 3000 rpm when trying to outdrag a Tesco truck on the A9, with black smoke, then brown smoke, suddenly clouding my trail. I think the black smoke might be globs of oil being blown out of the intercooler circuit and sucked into the engine when under increased airflow, and perhaps the brown smoke is the cat trying to clean up my act. Maybe the ECU is injecting the fuel to match the air it was expecting, which is less than it was getting due to leakage? Any thoughts, Kenney, Crasher?

If anyone had similar problems and fixed them I'd be pleased to hear your opinions. Cheers, OD

[vwluke]

Hi again, just a quick update. The leak turned out to be the bottom turbo hose leaking air, mechanic fixed it for £25

Thanks for your help.

[the_old_diver]

vwluke - Thank you for sharing this. Any chance of a photo or pointer to the location?