Yesterday I tackled the Sticky Vanes problem on My 2002 1.9tdi (110bhp).

It has 120,000 miles and was beggining to drop into limp mode under relativley moderate acceleration.

I bottled out of the full strip down and manual cleaning of the Vanes and instead opted for the Innotec chemical clean.

I put the car up on ramps and disconnected the turbo exhaust(cat), refitting the gasket to hold the handy card contained in the Innotec pack, to prevent all the gunk spilling out. (Its a little bit fiddley with the o/s driveshaft in the way, but manageable)

I left it in the turbo, to do its work for about 3 hours and then gave it a flush with the relevant can provided.

You also get a bottle of Fuel additive, which i poured directly into my fuel filter.

I reassembled the exhaust (with a new gasket and nuts) and took it for a test drive.

Wow, the smile is back on my face. All the lost power has returned with no drop at all. It pulls like a train through all of the gears. I'm sure it will revert back in due course however it is a temporary reprive. Not bad for £40 quid and 3 hrs work.

I've seen those Innotec kits before, but not heard of anyone using them.

Excellent news that it worked.

I bet the mess that came out was lovely! Diesel soot is evil.

That's why the Holset VGT (sliding wall/shroud) system is so much more reliable.

I gather Mr Muscle oven cleaner is a good vane de-gunker - If you can find a way to spray it in there.

Yep I just had a PM from one of my local members who's been using Lidl BBQ cleaner LOL

My turbo problems are semi sorted. Car is running soooo much smoother, never overboosts, doesn't drop to limp home mode anymore. I modified the Turbo clean kit that I bought previously so that it could work better. Used up the remainder of the kit but as each can of spray ran out, substituted it with the following... Lidl's barbecue cleaner spray for the soot removal, Lidl's alloy wheel cleaner spray for the wash off (decanted into a MR Muscle bottle so that the metre long pipe we were spraying with would fit!) Then blasted everything back off with a compressed air spray from Maplin. It may need redoing every 6 months or so but at a cost of £15 every 2 cleans (they're big tins & only half empty) plus about 3 hours total work time ( half of that at least is soaking in time, so you can go off & do other stuff)

...I'm sure it will revert back in due course however it is a temporary reprive. Not bad for £40 quid and 3 hrs work.

In my experience, it is a temporary fix. I've openned up quite a few, several months after treatment and you can clearly see the bits that were missed.

How long it lasts is due to how well you covered the insides of the turbo and how early you caught the problem. Removing the vacuum tube and operating the turbo actuator by hand also improves the effectiveness.

My work colleague did it to him bora... Unfortunately its been unsuccessful!

New turbo / rebuild time

Has anyone had a garage do this for them? How much labour would it be?

There are places that do it for about £250 all in. Some of the popular tuners I think are now offering it (R-Tech for one)

My turbo has started going back into limp again, although I took the whole thing apart and gave it a good clean a while ago. This making me think that I still must have external problems to that of the turbo (vacuum related), so the vanes don't move as much as they should do.

I as wondering if I would be able to leave the exhaust manifold on the car, and just remove the turbo part from underneath - it would certainly be quicker that taking the inlet manifold, etc off.....

I used mr muscle oven cleaner foam and a piece of fish tank air hose. I removed the egr feed from the exhaust manifold and fed the pipe down into the turbo then, with the nozzle removed from the mr muscle, held the pipe tight around the feed from the can with a pair of pliers pushed it down with my thumbnail. I filled the turbo up with foam and left it for ten minutes then tired waggling the vane lever and it was loose, I filled it twice for good measure and left for a couple of hours before putting it back together and firing her up.