Hi all,

I've a 2005 Skoda Octavia Elegance, 1.9 TDI with DSG. Over the past few months a fault has developed whereby the car trips into some form of 'safe' or 'limp home' mode under progressive acceleration. For example, on a motorway slip road when in 4th or 5th gear and pushing the engine reasonably hard (not hard enough to force the engine to change down a gear) causes this condition to occur. I can carry on driving, but the car is pretty gutless! I then have to stop and restart the engine which clears the fault.

I was advised by a friend to take the car to a diagnostics centre, which I did yesterday. They charge less than half Skoda's price for diagnosing the fault, but all they did was give me a printout with a code and some basic information - they can't shed any more light on the problem than that! So, before I go to see Skoda, I was wondering if this was a problem anyone else has had?

The fault diagnosis says the following:

Trouble code : P0234

Fault location : Engine boost condition - limit exceeded

Probable cause : Hose connection(s), wiring, TC wastegate regulating valve

TC wasetgate....

If relevant, I should also mention that this condition started 3 or 4 months back and is happening more regularly now. It occurs whether the engine is hot or cold and whether or not the gearbox is in auto or locked in gear. No lights or warnings appear on the dashboard.

Hope someone can shed a little light on this so I am more informed of the likely possibilities before seeing Skoda.

Many thanks,

Tim.

Hi all,

I've a 2005 Skoda Octavia Elegance, 1.9 TDI with DSG. Over the past few months a fault has developed whereby the car trips into some form of 'safe' or 'limp home' mode under progressive acceleration. For example, on a motorway slip road when in 4th or 5th gear and pushing the engine reasonably hard (not hard enough to force the engine to change down a gear) causes this condition to occur. I can carry on driving, but the car is pretty gutless! I then have to stop and restart the engine which clears the fault.

I was advised by a friend to take the car to a diagnostics centre, which I did yesterday. They charge less than half Skoda's price for diagnosing the fault, but all they did was give me a printout with a code and some basic information - they can't shed any more light on the problem than that! So, before I go to see Skoda, I was wondering if this was a problem anyone else has had?

The fault diagnosis says the following:

Trouble code : P0234

Fault location : Engine boost condition - limit exceeded

Probable cause : Hose connection(s), wiring, TC wastegate regulating valve

TC wasetgate....

If relevant, I should also mention that this condition started 3 or 4 months back and is happening more regularly now. It occurs whether the engine is hot or cold and whether or not the gearbox is in auto or locked in gear. No lights or warnings appear on the dashboard.

Hope someone can shed a little light on this so I am more informed of the likely possibilities before seeing Skoda.

Many thanks,

Tim.

Sounds like turbo failure & is very common especially if you are a steady driver, the turbo has variable vanes & as they get gummed up over time they stick & boost wont reduce as the turbo loads up so the car realises whats happening & puts the car into a form of limp mode to save further damage. Restarting clears this. There are quite a few threads on here about it. There are ways of getting the turbo cleaned & companies offering refurbed or replacement turbos. From memory I think a Genuine Skoda replacement fitted will kiss goodbye to around £1000.

As I said its very common & if you do a search on Turbo failure you should find more info. Also the more mechanically knowledgeable will probably post later with more advice

Sounds like turbo failure & is very common especially if you are a steady driver, the turbo has variable vanes & as they get gummed up over time they stick & boost wont reduce as the turbo loads up so the car realises whats happening & puts the car into a form of limp mode to save further damage. Restarting clears this. There are quite a few threads on here about it. There are ways of getting the turbo cleaned & companies offering refurbed or replacement turbos. From memory I think a Genuine Skoda replacement fitted will kiss goodbye to around £1000.

As I said its very common & if you do a search on Turbo failure you should find more info. Also the more mechanically knowledgeable will probably post later with more advice

Scroll down this thread & you will see a picture sdhowing a gummed & good Turbo http://briskoda.net/forums/topic/45563-1-9tdi-running-out-of-oomph/page__p__566160__hl__tdi%20turbo%20failure__fromsearch__1entry566160

Hi Briskodian - thanks for your responses, really helpful.

Incidentally, and this could be a pure coincidence or me getting paranoid, but two other things have happened in the past few weeks that may or may not be connected to the problems I set out in my post. One is that the car appears to be using oil, I've added about 1.5 litres in the past month or so (or maybe I'm spooking myself and the level was genuinely low and this is an irrelevance, but I suspect not).

The other is that at the weekend, as I was about to set off I had a low water alarm for the coolant - it was below the minimum. Again, I would have thought I'd have noticed the level falling over the past months, but perhaps I genuinely missed it?!

Either way, I'm concerned that there may be something else going on - perhaps to do with the cylinder head. There's no sign of the telling 'mayonnaise' under the oil cap, and the coolant water in the reservoir looks clean. I've not noticed any smoke either but I'm not convinced the engine is performing as well as it should under acceleration.

As I say, this could all be coincidence, but perhaps it rings a bell with someone! I'll get it checked out in the next week or so, but interested in any thoughts.

Oh, and since having had the fault code cleared by my local diagnostics garage, the limp home fault hasn't returned - it had been failing almost every day! Anyone know why clearing the fault code prevents a re-occurence?

Kind regards,

Tim