My car seems to be making a weird noise coming from the turbo wastegate. It's quite loud - you can't really hear it with the radio on but it doesn't sound good if you don't have the radio on. I assumed the wastegate would produce a nice "whoosh" of air upon release but my car sounds like it's choking/coughing from the wastegate.

The turbo doesn't whine or make any strange noises that I can tell - just this weird coughing noise. It happens when you accelerate and let off the throttle and when you change gear under boost.

I took the car out for a spirited drive a few weeks back and it was making this weird noise and then when I was at about 75mph it felt like the engine died - even with the foot flat to the floor the car was loosing speed rather than gaining it. I assumed at the time that this was the EGR valve as I have trouble with the EGR valve on my van which has a similar effect. When I got the car home I left it for a while, restarted it and took it for a drive - turbo was working normal again but that strange noise was still there.

What could this be and is it normal??

Rev the car, lift off suddenly - *ch ch ch ch chhhh* or similar

Both of my 2.0 TDIs have done this from new and it might just be a slight surge through the compressor.

You could be suffering from sticky VNT vanes.

I had a terrible flat spot in the rev range and it was down to sticking vanes, the turbo overboosted and essentially shut down, no power whatsoever with the car slowing down with the accelerator pedal buried in the Axminster, a restart cured it. The turbo popped shortly afterwards but I am NOT suggesting in any way that this will happen to you. I had ever increasing whining noises under partial load (and that wasn't when SWMBO was in the car either!) until the inevitable.

Get the turbo checked out or it could potentially cost you dearly.

As you say, it might be an idea to de gunk the EGR plumbing as well.

I wouldn't be surprised if the turbo was knackered - my car is an ex police car. I hope not though since I have spent thousands on it!!

Sounds like sticking vanes to me.........sorry. Get it checked, but don't get your hopes up as it is a very common with the 2.0tdi. How many miles on the car ??

80,000

80,000

I have done a bit of research because I just had the same problem and had my turbo replaced and according to all of those in the know the life expectancy on this Garrett turbo is approx. 75,000miles. If you have to drive it before getting it checked out, drive it very very gently............best of luck.

75k isn't a lot. Everyone keeps going on about VW build quality and reliability but this Octavia hasn't given me much enthusiasm for german technology. I have a 2003 Renault Kangoo with 113,000 miles and the turbo hasn't caused any trouble on it.

I was out in the car earlier and it drove fine and then all of a sudden the engine management light came on and there was no more boost. This seemed to happen when changing from 5th to 6th gear - it was fine up until that point. I'm leaving it to cool down now and then I'll restart it and see what happens.

75k isn't a lot. Everyone keeps going on about VW build quality and reliability but this Octavia hasn't given me much enthusiasm for german technology. I have a 2003 Renault Kangoo with 113,000 miles and the turbo hasn't caused any trouble on it.

I was out in the car earlier and it drove fine and then all of a sudden the engine management light came on and there was no more boost. This seemed to happen when changing from 5th to 6th gear - it was fine up until that point. I'm leaving it to cool down now and then I'll restart it and see what happens.

Sorry, this will keep happening and get steadily worse until it fails. The only way you will be able to keep the car out of "limp" mode is to drive it below 2000rpm very gently and even this will be impossible when you come to hills. Its not a Skoda VW problem as such, its the Garrett GT1749 is a very poor turbo. Get it checked out, you may be lucky but it sounds like a very familiar story.

What actually causes the turbo to fail? is it the sticking VNT vanes? I was told my turbo suffered an overspeed and the compressor flew apart with the centrifugal force.

Is the GT1749 used in any other non VAG car that isn't a ******ised 2.0TDI?

Even my properly unreliable P12 Primera kept hold of its original turbo up to and beyone 136,000 miles. Saying that, it was pretty much the only thing that was reliable on it.

What actually causes the turbo to fail? is it the sticking VNT vanes? I was told my turbo suffered an overspeed and the compressor flew apart with the centrifugal force.

Is the GT1749 used in any other non VAG car that isn't a ******ised 2.0TDI?

Even my properly unreliable P12 Primera kept hold of its original turbo up to and beyone 136,000 miles. Saying that, it was pretty much the only thing that was reliable on it.

The GT1749 is a very common turbo, to be fair to it, I think a lot of the blame is to do with the VNT design and the onset of EGR units. The vanes get too easily clogged up with the dirty gases getting recirculeted through them. If you have to replace your turbo, go for a TurboTechnics re-con unit as they slightly modify the VNT assembly to make it less prone to clogging up. I have one of these units on my car now and I have to say, the power delivery is also much smoother.

How much is one of these re con units all in roughly? are they more robust when it comes to remaps?

I took the car to a VW specialist today who was able to switch off the engine management light for me. It appears that the light refers to faulty glow plugs that need replacing - hopefully curing the warm starting problem.

He said that the turbo should be ok so long as I drive it normally as much as possible - but that it will need replacing if I want the engine to run smoothly and for better power delivery.

I took the car to a VW specialist today who was able to switch off the engine management light for me. It appears that the light refers to faulty glow plugs that need replacing - hopefully curing the warm starting problem.

He said that the turbo should be ok so long as I drive it normally as much as possible - but that it will need replacing if I want the engine to run smoothly and for better power delivery.

Bugger :thumbdwn:

How much is one of these re con units all in roughly? are they more robust when it comes to remaps?

The Turbo cost me £440, I think. They also give a 2 year warranty with their units, you only get 1 year with the OEM units. The price of the GT1749 was 650euro plus VAT from the Garrett distributor in Ireland and it was 1200euro's from Skoda !!!

Well I took my car for MOT tonight and it passed thank goodness. I was so pleased (I have been working on my car for 7 months!) that on the way home I pushed the boat out a little a drove it a little harder than normal but not flat out. The turbo seemed to be boosting and releasing the pressure properly in one woosh. However, it also seemed to be releasing pressure at about 2,200 RPM by itself even when on the throttle for some reason. I think it's loosing boost somewhere and causing most of the problems I am experiencing (overboost fault on the computer).

I'm going to give the car a oil and filter change over the weekend and see what happens after that.

As mentioned earlier in the thread 75K miles seems to be average for the life of the turbo on the 140PD, but that does not mean it will fail at that point. Mine has done just short of 90K miles and still going strong.

Well I took my car for MOT tonight and it passed thank goodness. I was so pleased (I have been working on my car for 7 months!) that on the way home I pushed the boat out a little a drove it a little harder than normal but not flat out. The turbo seemed to be boosting and releasing the pressure properly in one woosh. However, it also seemed to be releasing pressure at about 2,200 RPM by itself even when on the throttle for some reason. I think it's loosing boost somewhere and causing most of the problems I am experiencing (overboost fault on the computer).

I'm going to give the car a oil and filter change over the weekend and see what happens after that.

If the vanes are not modulating correctly according to rpm then you will get a wastegate effect which is a loss in boost or an overboost effect as the turbo is compressing too much air as the vanes are in the wrong place at the wrong time. This is sometimes accompanied by a high pitched 'weeeeeeeeee' from the turbo :thumbdwn:

They can be cleaned out if you are feeling brave: VNT15-Turbo

Good luck with that one

It seems strange to me that it's just a build up of dirt and crud from the exhaust that can cause my problems. Surely there is some kind of product out that there that you can spray into the turbo/air intake system to loosen up any dirt that may be making it stick?

The turbo seemed to be acting ok this morning - only making a chuff chuff noise when the engine was cold. It's still dumping boost at about 2,200 RPM though.

My Oct II has 145,000 mls on the clock and last week the turbo started to indicate it is need of replacement.

Been getting all the signs as indicated in the previous posts.. including lose of power and turbo going into safety mode at about 2500 rpm.

Hey ho... nothing lasts forever !

I've had strange noises very similar to your description at the beginning, starting right after a flywheel replacement on my car. More than one person has suggested something dislodged by the mechanics. Thy popped it up on the ramp.... couldn't find anything, but suggested I leave it longer when it has it's service so they can check.

Since then I've looked at the turbo, run an innotec turbo clean kit through it, cleaned the egr, cleaned the throttle body....... there was gunk, quite a lot, but it wasn't the worst ever. Even with the exhaust off, the turbo is silent at idle, no bearning issues there, but it does begin to boost, then start losing it. There's no real flat spot though, it does continue to rev and run right through to redline, no limp mode at all. If I just STAMP my foot on the floor though, it revs to 2000rpm, THEN all the boost comes, but still no limp mode.

I'm inclined to think a hose I haven't checked yet, or one of the sensors at this point.

I've bought a set of those Innotec Turbo cleaning products. Hopefully I'll see some results! Was it hard to use the kit?

I've bought a set of those Innotec Turbo cleaning products. Hopefully I'll see some results! Was it hard to use the kit?

Can you post a link for this please ??

Only place I could find it was on good old Ebay...

INNOTEC TURBO VARIABLE VANE CLEANER VW SEAT SKODA AUDI on eBay (end time 21-Oct-09 22:00:30 BST)

Bit pricey if you ask me but if it works it'll be the best £40 I've spent.

Sorry, how lazy is that, I should know better.......Google is our friend !! How much did you pay for this ??

Sorry, how lazy is that, I should know better.......Google is our friend !! How much did you pay for this ??

I bought it for £30 direct from the innotec warehouse in Salisbury.

It was not too hard to use although there's a marmon clamp instead of a bold on exhaust. It's hard to get much clearance between the box and the exhaust, but I managed. My only tip would be run the hose right up in there, get it right inside, I lost some of the fluid due to a badly angled spray nozzle/hose, so it might be worth doing again. I've never touched an engine much before, I suggest downloading pictures of the turbo and engine to provide familiarity with the engine before getting under the car. However, as a novice I had the turbo clean kit in, EGR cleaned and throttle body cleaned in about 4 hours.

My choke noise not gone, I certainly may do the kit again after it's had a service and been vag-comed for fault codes, but there's more boost, still a gap in the middle. Like boost, flat, boost. The rpm's are lower overall, some real improvement.

Hope that helps. If I find the cause of the cough cough noise I'll be sure to report back.