Hi All,

I recently got back from a trip to the Nurburgring in my Fabia vRS, whilst on a lap approaching a hill I dropped a gear too low to get me up and the engine management light flashed on for a second then went off and I had no turbo! I know I have been stupid and feel really bad as I love this car - I just took my eyes off the rev counter and before I knew it I had no boost. I nursed the car back to the car park and left it to cool down for a couple hours and started it back up and everything was perfectly fine- there was no dash lights on and my boost was fine. Question is have I caused damage to the car or is there anything I should be worried about or worth me taking it for a check up at the garage? Any advice would be much appeciated. I just need to put my mind to rest as Id hate to cause further damage to the car.

Thanks guys, :confused:

You probably just sent it into limp mode, and then when the diagnostics ran next time you started up there was nothing to report and so the dash light didn't reappear. A quick spell on VAG-COM should confirm, but I reckon that's all that's happened, in my limited and inexpert opinion...

Sounds like you just went into limp mode mate, it should be fine but worth a scan with VAG COM, probably an overspeed/overboost problem.

My 2p would be on a momentary overboost - slap on the wrist - if it's running fine after then that's likely ok.

Might have voided your warranty though.

see http://briskoda.net/maintenance-performance/lost-my-boost/10145/

hope all is well after that worry though...

Bas

Thanks for the advice, I will look into this VAG software or see if a local garage or skoda dealer will check it out for me. Fortunately I have no warranty as its 4 yrs old but at the time I absolutely bricked it, I just couldnt hear as much with a helmet on and concentrating on my lap, then thought **** Im about 500 mile from home with no turbo! For the record the car did me proud off the ring and on so I owe it a little TLC starting with a good wash to get the diesel smoke off the back!

You can damage it by doing that. The valves don't get out of the way fast enough and they get hit by the pistons. But my guess is that would be very obvious and you got away with it this time. It's much harder to damage an engine by accelerating into the red line; it will lose power before it takes damage.

I don't know if you saw the Top Gear where Clarkson took the diesel Jag to the 'Ring. He stuffed it into a gear which was too low and that put the car into limp mode. So don't worry, I don't think you're the first and nor will you be the last to do it! The engine then automatically goes into limp mode when you do something like that until the driver can be taught how to change gear properly .

engine then automatically goes into limp mode when you do something like that until the driver can be taught how to change gear properly .

I know it was totally my fault and its pointless red lining a diesel however in my case it was purely down to my gear shift to climb a hill, In my defense the Nurburgring is a tricky thing to master in anyones book, I did manage to lap the Furby Bridge to Gantry in 10 mins though which I was quite happy with considering Clarkson struggled to do it in the Jag!

I dont think my Furby will be going back for some more punishment though - it made me decide the only way to truly enjoy the place is take a track car! End of story. Stakes are too high taking your own pride and joy!

As others, the worst that's actually happened is that there's a fault code logged. If you'd broken something, you'd have needed a tow truck!

Thing I loved about the Clarkson story was Sabine getting into the Jag for the first time, and being 20s faster! Then the postscript where she was only 10s slower than Clarkson in the Jag, in a Transit!

Now the bad news; I have a friend of a friend who claims to have done 9:30 in a Yaris 1.5VVT!

Is that the T-Sport? Only 103 bhp, but also only 995kg = 104bhp/te as opposed to the Jag: 206bhp, 1790kg = 115bhp/te - barely 10% in it. Once you add the fact that the Yaris probably handles a lot better and has nice low gears for nippy acceleration, it really doesn't seem that incredible assuming your friend is reasonably handy with a steering wheel...

I'd say thats more than possible for your mate to do that time in a Yaris! I could of done it quicker but when you here your own car grinding on the wheel arches and you remember you have to drive the thing home I tended to hold back a bit. I had a brand new set of Eagle F1 GSD3's on there and although they performed really well they are not a track tyre and with the amount of heat in them I could feel the car slipping near the end of the laps. With a set of Toyos or some other kind of road race / track tyre you could easily knock off another 30" or so I reckon.

By the way I've ordered the VAG COM cable so I can clear the error code from my turbo mishap

Dunno exactly which Yaris it was; I wasn't there. Apparently the Yaris has a name; it's called "I think I've just melted the diff"