Help.  For almost a year I have lost power when towing my caravan - mainly up hills.  No problems at all with caravan brakes or anything else and driving solo is fine, even under pressure.  Skoda dealers have no idea what is wrong and failed to find a fault on diagnostic machine.  A diesel specialist suggested I use V grade diesel with a Miller's additive which I have done for about 800 miles with no noticeable improvement.  2 independent garages can find no fault.  I lose power and can only achieve 20-25 mph with full acceleration.  It is an automatic gearbox and I have tried dropping into manual gears with no effect. The latest suggestion by Skoda is to have the catalytic converter renewed "to see if this helps" (at a vast outlay of £1000!).  Anybody any similar problems or ideas of what to do next?  HELP!!!!!

If the car's done more than about 50_000 miles since this was last done, have the ATF changed. Get a garage to do this (if you've smelt used ATF you'll know why).

 

Original source of recommendation is ZF Transmissions.

Welcome.

 

I wonder if you have the sticky turbo vanes problem, that will put the car in limp mode under load without necessarily throwing a fault code, not too clued up on diesel cars, but worth doing a search on here for the sticky vanes and mr muscle turbo treatment.

 

I also agree with ken O Neill above, old slightly burnt ATF is a horrible thing, if I owned an auto I'd think about changing it.

Hi and welcome aboard.

Welcome. Wouldn't have a clue about your issue, perhaps as as Ken says ATF change?