2012 Fabia 1.9tdi 40,000 miles

Very briefly. 

Changed down a gear on a steep hill hill, huge cloud of white smoke from exhaust, engine over revved (switched off). Came to a halt and all was dead.  Got it towed to a garage and they looked at it and said it wouldn’t turn over and was almost certainly cam-belt, wasn’t worth looking at.  I had it towed home and couldn’t do anything for a couple of weeks.  Today when I tried to start it, it did so immediately and ticked over normally.  However when I tried to rev it just died.  No dash warnings. 

I assume that as it idles apparently perfectly, it cannot be the cambelt!!  Any suggestions would be gratefully received.

John

 

Turbo failure?

Hi, That is what I thought but when I described what happened to a Skoda garage service manager he said "no way"

Seems plausible; the larger the cloud of white smoke, the more plausible it seems.

 

@AlligatorPear - Easy check. Dip the oil, and if you're missing a litre or more, I think we have a winner.

14 minutes ago, AlligatorPear said:

Hi, That is what I thought but when I described what happened to a Skoda garage service manager he said "no way"

 

Yes way, cambelt is obviously fine so not much else it can be.

Easy to inspect the turbo, I expect the rotor shaft has broken just behind the exducer leading to a sudden injection of high pressure engine oil into the red hot manifold leading to the white smokescreen behind the car before the engine stalled due to loss of power.

Can you actually drive it, without revving? Just start, pop in gear, find bite and move off?