I normally drive a MKII Tdi but 2 weeks ago bought myself a Combi Mk I TDi and have enjoyed driving her.

She's a bit leggy (180k) but still pulls like a train, however,accelerating onto the motorway today she just lost most of her ponies and felt like an SDi, curiously, the temp gauge dropped from the usual halfway point down to the first quarter mark (70 deg ??) as well.

She'll plod along at low revs but really struggles to rev past 2-2500.

Has anybody any clue what this could be? I was thinking MAF but why would that affect the temp gauge?

Try running with the MAF unplugged and see how she goes, otherwise maybe a faulty CTS, or could be sticky vanes on the turbo.

coolant temperature sensor - replace with genuine VAG item, think jorily do them for around £20

A scan with vag-com will reveal why it has dropped into limp home mode.

Cheers for the replies, plugged her in and got 4 fault codes,

17965 Boost control?

18039 Throttle pedal reading

18062 ????

18080 Coolant fan control

All these faults together would seem to point to an electric/electronic problem rather than mechanical or am I barking up the wrong tree?

I'd start with the CTS. I'm not sure this will cure everything, but I am sure it's faulty, so start with the fault that definitely is.

18062 is a problem with DTC Memory in the cluster. This is often caused by power problems. If you are using VCDS, can you post the whole scan (with the VIN edited out). It includes more detail about each code.

1st one suggests sticky turbo vanes or duff N75 - it is overboosting and hence why it went into limp mode.

18062 is telling you to check the instruments for errors - in VCDS go into the instruments module.

The last one suggests one of the fans isn't working.

I suspect that the last code is separate issue from the others.

Try clearing the codes and then take it for a drive and give it some welly to try and get it to go into limp mode and then scan for faults again.

Cheers chaps,

Car running fine today and after a chat with my friendly local Skoda service manager it would appear that there are indeed separate issues, one possibility raised is a knackered vacuum hose which led to car going into limp home.

Back to full power now so I'm a happy clam, probably will have to get my hands dirty and sort out the wee problems but all fine for the mo.

Try booting it up a steep long hill in 2nd/3rd and see if it drops into limp. If that happens then it an overboost, which could be caused by sticky vanes, or a vacuum leak, or the n75 valve.

Some lack of power could be caused by MAF starting to fail, or maybe a CTS failure (the CTS has two circuits - one for the dash, and one of the gauge on the dash). Black ones are prone to fail, and should be replaced with a newer green one.