I've bought my 2006 Octavia 1.9 TDi from a Skoda Dealer six months ago with only 7k gauranteed miles on the clock. Never driven a diesel before or any car with a turbo so didn't know what to expect regarding performance. Always seems a little slow to me. A friend tells me I should be able to hear the turbo working, like a kind of whistle. I'm beginning to wonder whether my turbo has been working at all.

How can I check to see if my turbo really is working?

Thanks,

mbp

Im not techno guy but.. I have a 1.9 TDi 105BHP i think the revs kick in 2500rpm, I know it is working if im on the motorway and put my foot down there is a smooth constant acceleration (when its at 2500rpm or more) and I think its pretty obvious, BTW im just telling you from MY experience, mine could be broken for all i know! ^^

Dave

I would not buy a car that old wit that low a mileage on it, because it's almost certainly never been hot, never mind given a chance to run in properly. Not that that helps you.

If it has a full service history based on time, not mileage - Get the engine properly hot, then rev it like you stole through the gears someplace quiet a few times (up to legal limit only of course ). That might make it feel better.

I would not buy a car that old wit that low a mileage on it, because it's almost certainly never been hot, never mind given a chance to run in properly. Not that that helps you.

Not always the case these days. My vRS has a low mileage, but its ONLY used on infrequent long runs. I use a Fabia for the local runs. Between long runs it sits in a heated garage! Better looked after than I am.

For the OP, I can't hear the turbo running on the 1.9PD, but my 19 year old son can. As you get older your ears deteriorate and you can't hear the high frequencies.

If really worried then get someone with VCDS to grab some live data and scan for DTC's - will only take a few minutes - that will soon tell you whether its working.

I would lean towards ken's point, but I know from my own mileage that since the service in july last year I've only done 1200 mile compaired to 18-20k. But this is mostly down to its been stored for 6 months. My mates car is a few months newier than mine and he has only got 8k miles on it. Now that is one car I would not buy as its all around town to shops and back.

As for the turbo you should be able to feel a sudden boost (will feel like a extra pull) from the above revs might not be massive but you should be able to notice it. As for slow depends on what you have just come from, even my nackered old 1.9TD pug had the turbo pull feel.

Of course another way to tell is to test drive another 1.9TDi and see if that feels the same.

If the turbo wasn't working you would experience a sensation of driving along with your handbrake pulled up.

Try driving in top gear at about 40 mph, then put your foot to the floor, after a few seconds the turbo should spool up and away you go.

You will know when the turbo's broke, anything above 60mph is hard to achieve.

It also will be gobbling fuel like no tomorrow. Aswell as smelling rather like unburnt diesel.

Mine use to leave soot marks on the drive, after the turbo let go and lodged its self in the cat convertor on the motorway.

Edited 4 February, 201016 yr by Browny_37

I agree, you DEFINITELY won't be in doubt if your turbo is not working.

In my old 110 bhp Pug., the solenoid to the turbo kept acting up .....I never knew if the turbo was going to spin, which led to many nerve shredding incidents ... trying to join the motorway at 40 mph, pulling out of tee junctions and not being able to keep up with the flow of traffic, top speed 50 mph on the motorway etc.

Anyway...had to put up with that for 13 weeks whilst waiting for the VRS to be delivered, and now I have to be carefull not to be travelling too fast when joining the m-way!

Have had our 2.0 140 bhp 55 plate dsg and never heard a whine when giving it welly, however there has been times when i am about to get in the way of faster traffic i go to the floor and once or twice a cloud of smoke comes out , by then its motoring. I am not concerned about the smoke as it usuaslly is because its not been pushed hard for some time.

Open the driver's window, take foot of accelertor for a few seconds then floor-it. Do this on a road that's lined with houses etc. The sound of the turbo whistle should be pretty obvious as it bounces back of the walls. in fact just moving of from rest should be enough to hear it with the windows down.

I've had two Octy 1.9TDis and currently have a 2.0TDi - i couldn't hear the turbo whistle on any of them unless the window was open.

I don't think the cut-in point is very noticeable in terms of being shoved back in the seat. The power delivery builds up very smoothly with no sudden step - especially on the 1.9TDis. This is probably due to the variable geometry turbos used these days.

I have owned several older cars with turbos (petrol and diesels) and the cut-in point was very noticeable on them.

As other people have mentioned the performance would be extremely bad if the turbo wasn't working and surely the engine fault light would be on?