This is for a Skoda Octavia Elegance 1.9 TDI, in line Diesel, Intercooler turbo.

There was a lot of rain last week and I drove through about 1 foot deep water. Some water got sucked through the air filter but the car did not stall. I went home and left the car for about a couple of days in the garage without driving.

Now, The car seems to be running fine, however, there is loss of power after about 2000 rpm. I'm having to give lot more gas to gain higher speed after 2000 rpm. The piston seems to be fine as there is no problem at lower rpm.

The air filter foam (I believe its foam) seems to have become hard and inflexible. Would this stopping air intake, which in turn is lowering the power? Or could something have gone wrong with the turbo?

Pls. advise, your thoughts will be appreciated.

I'm taking it to the work shop tomorrow, so I'll update you on that.

thanks!

Yes , if the air filter is clogged then it would cause the problems you describe

Another sign of a blocked air filter is a very smokey exhaust....

Chris

I'd suspect the air filter over anything else, particularly if the engine is down on power, possibly smokey, but isn't any noisier than normal.

If you get the air filter wet and the MAF gets wet, then the water will damage the MAF.

I'd say try a new air filter and if that doesn't work try a new MAF.

This happened to mine when it had the standard airbox fitted resulting in instant power loss

Took the top off and not only was the air filter soaked covered in mud and thoroughly blocked there was

also two inches of water laying in the bottom of the air box MAF was still ok though

This brings back memories of when I worked for Peugeot as the 206 used to love sucking water out of puddles and then it would feel very poorly. As others have already stated if the air filter is saturated with water this would cause the problem you describe. One other sympton would be white smoke from the exhaust if it is burning water in the cylinders. If it had hydro locked the engine you would know about it as it would probably want either a new engine or a full rebuild with crank and pistons. Change the air filter first and see how you go, the fileter wont dry out naturally for a long time sealed up in the air box and a new one is the only way forward if its saturated. Ensure you dry the air box out too with a blow off gun if available. If this still does not work ensure that the air intake sensor or throttle housing has not been damaged by water ingress through the induction system. Hopefully the above will work as it seems to be still driving ok just with a lack of power.

Steve

If you hydraulic a motor, and are dead lucky, you might only bend all the valves. Damage runs from there up to all rods and crank bent or broken, and any hit on compression stroke out the side of the block.

Folks, thanks for all the support and advise...

I got the car serviced - oil change, air filter change, oil filter change, etc. It was sad because there was no improvement in the performance for the entire week.

However I had a surprise tonite

I slowly let the RPM go above 2000 rpm even though there was no significant boost in performance. Suddenly the turbo kicked in at 3500 rpm and the engine got freed up. Now it's running like magic - the choking and lack of performance has just vanished.

I opened the boot, and noticed there is a gust of hot air coming from the right side of the engine (if I'm facing the car engine).

Is this weird or normal? Did the exhaust get choked?

I'm gonna get this checked in the morning.

thanks a ton again for the responses...

ciao.

Prash

I meant to say "car bonnet" not "car boot".... sorry...

Don't know exactly what you'd been doing just before opening the bonnet, but the standard location for the intercooler is inside the RHF wheel arch, and it's not unknown for the wing to get warm. There are a number of ways of venting it, of varying degrees of pikeyness, from just Swiss cheezing the arch liner, to expanded mesh or galvanised louvre panels, to an Audi TT arch vent.

Maybe you had some water in the intake pipework, and by getting the turbo working you managed to get it blown out.

Either way, glad it seems to be back up and running properly again! The service certainly won't have done any harm anyway!