1.4 TDI (75) Loss of power, lots of white smoke, now won't start [SOLVED]

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Hi Guys,

After spending a fair chunk of time and money getting my A2 back to a decent condition (new suspension, CCU and door microswitch replacement - thanks again @Sarge ) and finally being happy with it, out of absolutely nowhere the car experienced a pretty catastrophic failure this weekend. So I'm hoping for some advice as to what might have gone wrong.

The car covered ~100 miles on Saturday driving to the Kent coast for the day (mainly motorway). It was a warm day ~21°C but I didn't hit any traffic and the engine temp stayed bang on 90° like it always does, the car drove faultlessly and everything seemed fine.

On my return I stopped at a supermarket near home to pick up some bits. When I started the car back up everything seemed ok, but pulling away I was immediately aware of a lack of power. The engine wouldn't pick up above 1500rpm and as I was crawling away I could see a white cloud of smoke in the rear view mirror, I pulled over and got out of the car to inspect. I realised the smoke was coming from the engine bay and the engine was making a knocking noise so turned everything off. It smelt a bit like burnt plastic to me.

I was towed home by a friend (steering and breaking without power is terrifying FYI). I tried to start the car again hoping to reverse onto my driveway, it was turning over but wouldn't start and the white smoke immediately started coming out of the engine bay again with the same burnt plastic smell. I've had a look in the engine bay but nothing looks obviously melted. The weird thing is there's been no warning lights flash up on the dash!

Other factors that might be important:
  • I had the air-con blowing extra cold for most of the journey. I usually have it set on 'auto' but it was a hot day.
  • The fuel light came on half way home, so I drove ~25 miles after. I would say there was still a decent amount of diesel in the tank when I parked up, it wasn't running on fumes.
  • When I parked the car up at the supermarket and turned off the ignition I noticed the engine didn't stop quite as smoothly as it usually does. It wasn't violent, but it was noticeable - I didn't think much of it at the time.
  • The 'service' notification flashed up on the DIS at the start of the day. I thought this was weird because in the space of maybe 4 days prior it flashed '600MI Service', then '300MI Service' when I'd only driven it about 200 miles max.
 
Has the intake hose jumped off the flap motor?

You really need to scan to see if any codes come up
 
Er, no it's not. White smoke is perfectly normal from a blown turbo and the OPs symptoms are pretty much exactly what happened to Tank last year.

It does sound like you have a failed turbo. Please don't run the car until the head and cylinder internals are checked - Tank's engine was scrap after the vanes decided to take up residence in cylinder 1.
 
Er, no it's not. White smoke is perfectly normal from a blown turbo and the OPs symptoms are pretty much exactly what happened to Tank last year.

It does sound like you have a failed turbo. Please don't run the car until the head and cylinder internals are checked - Tank's engine was scrap after the vanes decided to take up residence in cylinder 1.
I was right after all maybe blown turbo ?

I thought it was only black smoke if blown turbo clearly I’m wrong. As the saying goes you learn new things everyday :)
 
Has the intake hose jumped off the flap motor?

You really need to scan to see if any codes come up

I couldn't see any obviously loose hoses in the engine bay, but I'll check again. Do you know if VCDS-Lite would allow me to scan for the necessary codes to diagnose this, or would I need the proper version?

Er, no it's not. White smoke is perfectly normal from a blown turbo and the OPs symptoms are pretty much exactly what happened to Tank last year.

It does sound like you have a failed turbo. Please don't run the car until the head and cylinder internals are checked - Tank's engine was scrap after the vanes decided to take up residence in cylinder 1.

I did read up on your Turbo woes whilst searching the forum for similar issues. I was hoping that mine being a TDI 75 as opposed to your TDI 90 I might be less exposed to Turbo failure, but I agree the symptoms sound very similar. Obviously I'm praying it's not that as in my case that would almost definitely be an uneconomic repair.

It just seems really odd that the car was running fine prior to parking up! I'd of thought Turbo failure would be most likely to happen when the engine was being pushed.
 
Turbo failure is pretty much evenly split between 75 and 90 versions, although 90PS turbos do also suffer from their vanes sticking, so this pushes up the overall rate for the more powerful model.

Mine decided to let go when pulling away from the traffic lights - not exactly giving it the beans either. When the time is up, it's up no matter what you're doing with the right pedal.
 
Thought I'd better post an update on this situation. For anybody else who finds themselves in a similar situation.... THERE IS HOPE!

I got a scan done with a registered version of VCDS-Lite which threw up a few errors but nothing related to the engine. At my wits end I decided to bite the bullet and get the A2 transported to my local VAG specialist - I've plugged him once on here already but if you are based in South East London/Kent I highly recommend Spence at VASS Specialists in Swanley.

He diagnosed the issue as a mechanical failure of the EGR valve! Which explains why I hadn't seen any error codes on the scan. £200 and a new EGR valve later I'm back on the road. Still not the cheapest repair but a much better outcome than a blown turbo.
 
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