as the title really. im trying to find a car second hand that doesnt have the sticky vanes problem. my last car had it and it eventually broke the turbo probably due to overspeeding of the compressor/turbine wheels.

my friends 2001 skoda octavia, 160k miles, overboost/limp.

my 2003 seat toledo from when i bought it at 65k miles till it blew at 87k miles same o/l.

another 2003 seat toledo with 107k miles we viewed today same $hit. vag scope showed 2.5 bar on boost!!!

im really wondering if i shouldnt go back to petrol.

Those problems could probably be solved with a £3 can of Mr Muscle directed in the right place. Search Mr Muscle turbo treatment, endless list of turbos cured and ££££s saved. It's more common in high mileage runners, some of those turbos probably let go through general wear.

Edited 25 March, 201313 yr by Ben90

Mr Muscle, in my experience has not, sadly, provided a reliable cure. It has certainly helped though.

Once you know you have a turbo with sticky vane issues you can try and keep on top of it, rather than letting it worse and in the case of the OT fail totally.

2.5 bar will be absolute and not far off target. My bmm runs that much.

Sticky vanes are a use problem. It's not the turbos fault.

Of course Mr M isn't a one-hit wonder cure, but its a good way of resetting the buildup caused by a sedentary driving style. You can then stay on top of it with the occasional spirited drive or further Mr M treatments if necessary.

Blanking the EGR will massively reduce sooting problems. Clean the turbo, inlet and blank off the egr and I doubt you'd see the problem again

As long as you watch what oil goes into these turbos and how often, they hardly ever are a problem. Plus VNT is meant to be used, no bored to death with constant 55mph snooze on the motorway.

Re EGR, again I think it is just a matter of good oil + do not babysit the engine. I used good oil for the life of my Octavia, at some point dismantled intake/exhaust after 110k+ miles and all was sparkly clean, just covered in a thin coat of carbonated oil. Not a single place with build-up. No EGR blanking/removal.

Edited 25 March, 201313 yr by dieselV6

Yeah they can be fine if treated and driven perfectly but for the most part they get gummed up and fill the inlet with filth. Its there for emissions purposes only, feeding exhaust gas back into the engine has no other benefit. It does however lose you power and fuel economy so it it can be removed I'd always do it.

Gumming up was a problem when high sulphur fuel was used, mostly in Third World Countries and North America. The horrifying pics on Internet are usually from American ALH engines working over high sulphur truck fuel.

Most decent oils (not the expensive ones, just the regular vw505.00 full synthetic replaced every 10k miles) just wash soot deposits off the walls.

While EGR does produce unwanted soot in intake, it really is nowhere near as much of a problem as the many EGR blanking plate and removal merchants would lead you to believe.

Likewise, most stuck vane VNT problems are due to people not really using turbo much, 1.9 engines do not like low rpm driving for quite a few reasons, best results and longest life from them is obtained if they normally work in 1800rpm- 2500rpm range with an occasional 3k+rpm blast.

I'm am not going by what the people who sell blanking plates say I have seen the utter muck the inlet gets filled with myself many many times and I don't live in a third world country either.

The oil no matter what type it is does not clean the soot off the inside of the inlet manifold nor does it clean it out of the turbine housing.

Blanking the egr reduces soot and given that the soot levels cause problems with the VNTs I'd say it's worth doing. Simply put if you have never had vnt or inlet caking problems keep it but if you have consider blanking it.

Just drive the car abit harder and use the turbo, its what its there for.

Just runnung to the shops and back will kill it

Blanking the EGR will massively reduce sooting problems. Clean the turbo, inlet and blank off the egr and I doubt you'd see the problem again

Sadly I cleaned by turbo (removed it), blocked off the EGR and did an elephant mode, and I drive the car in a suitable spirited fashion on a daily basis. I have since then applied Mr Muscle 3 times. It seems in the case of my car (at least) that the control rings/vanes get stuck just as the vacuum is starting to be applied. Therefore I tend to open the bonnet and manually move the actuator before setting off to try and prevent any unwanted limps. PITA for sure.

Sadly most of my 60 mile drive to work is at approx 55-60mph so around the 2000rpm mark. I always boot the car up hills (when warm), and probably change gear around 2750-3250 when on the flat.

The oil no matter what type it is does not clean the soot off the inside of the inlet manifold nor does it clean it out of the turbine housing.

Errm, it actually does clean, that's what detergent additves are for in the VW505/506/507 oils (and also for cleaning cylinder walls). Like I said, on my car all that was in the intake and next to EGR valve after 8+ years and 110k miles, was a thin (<0.5mm) layer of black carbonated oil. Same for the exhaust which after 10 years rusted through from the outside, oil+soot is good corossion protector. Though it is a good idea to get contaminated oil out of the intercooler every 10 years on the ASV.

An increasing number of workshops are quite unscrupulous now, and pour sub-par quality oil into engines during servicing. Best to do oil change yourself and only use sealed oil bottles.

I am sure there are cars (taxis?) out there that have persistent soot problems in Europe, but I'd suspect cost cutting through driving below 1500rpm, sub par oil servicing, and poor fuel (vegetable oil mix or bleached red diesel anyone?) are responsible for the deposit build-up problem far more than EGR itself.

Plus on 1.9 engines (both IP and PD), blanking EGR results in ridiculously long engine warm up time in winter, and actually higher fuel consumption if you do mixed or town driving. Been there, done that (actually lowered EGR to minimum through VCDS for a while).

Have a read of the part of my post that you quoted again. The detergents in the oil are there to clean the engine internals including the cylinder walls but not the inlet and the turbine housing.

Detergents do not know the difference between cylinder walls and inlet/turbine housing

Yes but neither the inlet or the turbine is immersed in oil nor does it have a constant supply

The point is a thin layer of half decent oil on intake and EGR walls, that inevitably is there due to crankcase ventillation and EGR, unsticks any soot that might otherwise stay behind. So clogging is not a problem unless one or a combination of factors mentioned in post #13 happens.

Edited 25 March, 201313 yr by dieselV6

Oil carryover from the crankcase breather cleans the turbine housing does it? Magic

I give up, perhaps when you start using a less "magical" oil that does not see the difference between cleaning cylinder walls and cleaning the intake, when you open the intercooler every few years to find a considerable amount of oil in there, and when you actually bother to open an engine intake/EGR that has been run for 100k+ miles using decent oil and regular fuel rather than "inventions", you may see my point. Does not help with an already stuffed engine, unfortunately.

I really wish my 1.9 Octy had not been rear ended and written off last year, at 129k the ASV engine was quite OK, (no buildup of soot in the entire intake chain whatsoever) apart from head gasket replacement caused by a bodged dealership TB job. 1.6CR that replaced it burns 10% more fuel in a 15% lighter car and 40% road /60% town driving (which Octy did for 6 years 2006-2012).

Edit: exhaust side turbine housing (where VNT vanes are) is kept in good nick by oil vapour, yes. As is the rest of exhaust pipework. Open the exhaust pipe, you will find thin layer of oil+soot on the inside. My Octy opened it itself at the sleeve , as it rusted from the outside.

Edited 25 March, 201313 yr by dieselV6

You have missed my point completely. I have worked on plenty of engines where the egr is completely stuffed up with **** from the exhaust. Feeding exhaust gas into the inlet is a bad idea for everything other than emissions, it increases soot which causes trouble elsewhere. Blanking it off helps this.

The turbine housing does not (or at least should not) have any oil in it so the oil cannot clean it no matter how much detergent is in it hence it would need to be magical to clean anything there. The inlet does have some oil in it from carryover but in my experience this mixes with the soot to form a paste so makes the problem worse rather than cleaning it off.

I am not going by one car or by any secondhand information off the internet, I have actually seen all this myself.

With other engines, I could agree. But 1.9 is well known for excessive oil consumption, 0.2-1l of oil every thousand miles were typical values. That oil went somewhere. While cursed at at the time by the owners (good VW spec oil was expensive), it does have the benefit of gunk removal.

Anyway, merely posting my experience from the very 1.9TDI IP ASV code engine discussed here.

Just to muddy the waters my asv powdered mkI used no oil the whole time I had it and the accumulation of gunge in the egr stopped when I ran the ccv to atmosphere through a cc.

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As said before 2500 on vag com is 1.5 bar which is about right for initial spool up on a vnt

2.5 bar will be absolute and not far off target. My bmm runs that much.

Sticky vanes are a use problem. It's not the turbos fault.

you sure? my tolly never went above about 2.1 when boosting.

you sure? my tolly never went above about 2.1 when boosting.

37psi absolute on my scout.