Changed the oil and filter in my 06 estate last night. Attempted to drive to work this morning and it started intermittantly losing power, not continuously just a stutter, but I turned round and drove it home again.

 

Seems to happen under acceleration, feels like loss of turbo pressure or similar. Checked with VCDS and no fault codes listed

 

So what else did I touch when doing the oil change? - well 2 of the intercooler hose joints were jammed in at strange angles so I re-seated them straight, these are obviously the first thing I will check tonight, but they should be right now, unless they stretched to the way they had been jammed before and are now letting air out under pressure.

 

I also noticed that the exhaust clamp connector between the front pipe and mid box appeared to have one of the bands loose, in fact both bands and the sleeve were loose. Obviously it was more loose after I prodded it and my intention was to take it to local exhaust centre after dropping some stuff at work, could those symptoms be caused by an intermittant leak in the exhaust reducing back pressure or something? Loads of speed bumps in my road so possible it became dislodged by one of them after my prodding.

 

But that's all, I may have waggled a sensor cable or 2 wiping spilt oil up (first time on this car so new mistakes, I can change my vectra's oil without spilling a drop now), but I don;t think so, and a sensor issue would normally throw up codes.

 

Is there anything else I should think of checking?

Sorry that its not an answer to your question but one of my own open the the forum in general.

 

Is there still such a thing in this modern world as a "local exhaust centre"?

 

Once commonplace but our last local one closed over 20 years ago and it was probably 10 years before that the last time I ever had to replace a failed car exhaust, and I cant recall ever seeing one anywhere else either in my travels since our one became a Do it All now an Aldi.

 

Maybe with all the particulate filters on modern vehicles there will be a resurgence but the days of exhausts rotting and dropping off every 18 months finished several years before the end of the last century.

Well, they are primarily a tyre centre but do exhausts too.

I just popped round to the motor factors to see if I could get a replacement clamp (no) and one of the guys from they tyre/exhaust place was in picking up parts and said they probably wouldn't have one but just to put ordinary clamps on the sleeve. I said that's a good idea I can get them over the road, at which point one of the guys from the shop I was referring to also walked into the motor factors...

Now equipped with a couple of exhaust clamps and a couple of jubilee clips I should be able to sort the exhaust out tonight one way or another!

 

Not sure what I can do if it is the intercooler hoses though, unless I have done something obviously stupid when reconnecting one.

Hmm, parts diagram shows 57.85mm O-rings in both the hose joints, I didn't spot them, I bet they are still wedged in at an angle or completely missing, but either way not sealing the conenctions.

Items 4 into 6 and 9 into 11:

https://skoda.7zap.com/en/cz/octavia/oct/2006-419/1/145-145085/

I did the exhaust first, no problem testing without load so went for a road test but only needed 50 yards under load to confirm it was not the exhaust.

 

Next I checked the intercooler hoses that I had re-seated, one of them was completely out of the intercooler. Assumed at first I had not clipped it properly, but the clip seemed OK but the hose just pulled back out. Looking at the lugs on the hose, they didn't seem very big, so I pulled another hose to compare, basically a previous mechanic or owner has managed to break the lugs on this hose so the clip can't retain it. Temporary fix involves jubilee clips and fence wire to secure the joint until I can source a replacement hose. Road test went fine, I don't normally monitor the mpg whilst driving but a friend reckons mine is well down so have been occasionally - difficult to tell from half a mile or so, but I think having the hoses inserted properly so the o-ring seal (shaped o-rings) work is already improving mpg by delivering all the charge air to the inlet.

 

So mystery solved and tempory fix looking good so far.

@Jim-octavia Well, having had an intercooler pipe joint pop, I'd expect to notice the total lack of power when that happened!

My testing was within a 20mph zone so it was not entirely obvious, but yes alternating power on and off.

 

Temporary fix didn't last, but a new hose sorted it and first indications are that the fuel economy has improved, I wonder how many litres of diesel could have been saved if I had looked underneath sooner...?