CR VRS - Sticking Turbo Vanes

[billylad]

Ive already posted about this problem - but this thread is about solving it.

 

Purchased a 2010 Octavia CR VRS on Saturday morning,  9th July. 77K miles, one lady owner, full dealership service history and looked well looked after.  On that same evening, I put it in manual and booted it up an entry slip onto motorway.  As the revs maxed out, the car went into limp mode.

 

This was cleared, but sadly returned under the same conditions.  Over the course of the next few days, the problem kept reappearing, but seemed to be more and more difficult to recreate. 

 

I'd tested the actuator, and that was holding a vacuum. 

 

I popped into the dealership tonight and they ran a full diagnostic on the car for me - cant thank them enough for fitting me in on the spur of the moment.  Anyway, as I expected - P0234 error code stored in ECU.  This relates to an overboost condition. 

 

From my research - i'd already pretty much established this, and I believed that it was the turbo vanes sticking inside the turbo.  The dealership have concluded the same thing, i.e. mechanics report states replace turbo - intermittent fault, turbo sticking internally.

 

Now in all honesty, I cant afford to have a new turbo fitted. And so, I am going to try as many other options before I do - the turbo works very well, it just sticks, so I dont think it needs to be replaced.  I am going to try FORTE Turbo cleaner first.  I have read about Mr Muscle - but dont know of anyone that's managed it on the CR. If anyone has, how did you do it?

 

Failing those two, i'll have the turbo removed and i'll send it off to be looked at.  How easy/difficult is it for a mechanic to remove and refit a turbo?

 

Anyone aware of any other techniques of unsticking the vanes?

 

 

 

 

[FatblokeVRS]

We had a similar issue. There was a stutter at between 2000 rpm and 2500 rpm. The tuning place tried an actuator from a Golf while diagnosing and realised it works 180 deg in reverse. That seems to have dislodged the carbon and it fixed it. They put the original actuator back on and it was fine. The also put a cleaner through it but not sure which one. We still occasionally get a slight stutter but give a few accelerations and it seems to clear it. I thought about the Mr Muscle fix too but couldn't even see the turbo when I looked under the car. Think it's quite an effort to remove it from what mechanic said.

Edited 13 July, 2016 by FatblokeVRS

[tonyuk74]

I had glow plug light flash 3 times in around 4 week. Code was for actuator position sendor. Used forte turbo clean. 2 bottles to full tank not had any issue as yet and on my 3 week now fingers crosed it did the job.

[billylad]

So far I've tried Forte Turbo cleaner and that made no difference.

I tried Mr Muscle but thats not worked either.

I'm now looking at having the turbo replaced. Any idea what a reasonable cost would be for this at an independent?

[FatblokeVRS]

We had a similar issue. There was a stutter at between 2000 rpm and 2500 rpm. The tuning place tried an actuator from a Golf while diagnosing and realised it works 180 deg in reverse. That seems to have dislodged the carbon and it fixed it. They put the original actuator back on and it was fine. The also put a cleaner through it but not sure which one. We still occasionally get a slight stutter but give a few accelerations and it seems to clear it. I thought about the Mr Muscle fix too but couldn't even see the turbo when I looked under the car. Think it's quite an effort to remove it from what mechanic said.

We had further issues recently (still have a lesser issue) with it going into limp mode which turned out to mostly be the actuator. While the actuator was off, I tried moving the lever on the turbo that operates the vanes to see if they were sticky. There was absolutely no resistance. Seemed perfectly fine. New actuator fitted and no more limp mode but now it has very restricted and fluttery acceleration up to around 2500rpm then it gives full boost and accelerates fine. Thought it was adjustment/ preloaded on the actuator so to took it in to a tuning place for adjustment. It was still the same when I got it back (assume it had been adjusted) but they had picked up 2 more error codes, again about vacuum and also about an open circuit. I am still trying to trace the fault. It may be the boost pressure sensor so I have a new one to fit but it is virtually impossible to get into the old one to remove it.

If you can get the turbo off, I would look into stripping it down yourself and cleaning it. You can also get return kits. Looking at the videos on YouTube, they look very simple to open up and put back together. You have nothing to lose and could save a small fortune.

[billylad]

Yeah I think I'll have a go taking it off and stripping it myself first. I've found the online workshop manual for it and it doesn't look that difficult. There''s very little info out there about VNT issues on the CR engine