Over the last few months I have noticed a gradual reduction in power and also in fuel economy - it's down about 5mpg.
Also when cold the engine sometimes sounds super quiet but randomly sometimes sounds like a tappety bucket of spanners.
Kept meaning to get the inlet side walnut blasted but never got round to it.
Anyway, going to meet some forum friends a couple of weeks ago there was virtually no low end power. I live at the bottom of a 2 mile hill onto the moors. I can normally accelerate up there, even pulling well in 5th. On this occasion it just wouldn't pull and I had to rev the spuds off it in 4th to make progress, and as soon as I put it into 5th it just lost all power.
I had a very gentle 100 mile trip fearing it was new turbo time. It felt like I had no small turbo.
Van is a CXEB with 147k on it, so I sort of accept that a new turbo may be just around the corner.
Came home and used @mmi turbo diagnostic thread to run all the turbo tests and live data and it passed every VCDS test procedure.
So, not believing that a turbo cleaner squirted into the air intake while revving the engine would make any difference, I purchased the best reviewed cleaner, REVIVE, expecting it to be a waste of £34, but I was working on the 'shit or bust' principle of replacement turbo cost.
So, after a period of teaching my tame goldfish how to hold the revs at 2200rpm for a full minute, we commenced the procedure.
Disconnect air intake downstream of MAF, start from cold, hold revs at 2200rpm and spray in the first 250ml over the course of 60 seconds, drop revs to 1800 and repeat with next 250ml. Turn off engine for 3 minutes. Restart, 2200rpm, last 250ml over 60 seconds then leave to tick over.
During that last 250ml a fair bit of smelly crap came out of the exhaust.
I then took it for a 20 minute blast during which it did a DPF regen. I guess the crap it chucked out had filled the DPF so if I use this again I'll do it just after a regen with a nice empty DPF.
Anyway, this stuff works, and not just in a subtle way. The van is back to normal power, it pulls like a train from about 1300rpm in each gear. It's back to being quiet and smooth, and mpg is way up. My gut feeling is that a small part of this was maybe freeing up a sticking small turbo, or turbo vanes, but the rest of the improvement - mpg and smooth running - is that it's removed a ton of crap from the inlet manifold. I always thought the randomness of the rough idle was to do with sticking or partially shut/open manifold flaps with the fuel trim and timing working overtime to keep it running ok. But beng a lazy-arse I never looked at them in live data in VCDS.
Anyway, If you have noticed a progressive drop in performance and mpg and you've got a good few miles on the old beast then it may be worth investing in a bottle of this stuff and training the wife how to keep the accelerator depressed at a fixed position for 60 seconds (that's the difficult part btw).
Also when cold the engine sometimes sounds super quiet but randomly sometimes sounds like a tappety bucket of spanners.
Kept meaning to get the inlet side walnut blasted but never got round to it.
Anyway, going to meet some forum friends a couple of weeks ago there was virtually no low end power. I live at the bottom of a 2 mile hill onto the moors. I can normally accelerate up there, even pulling well in 5th. On this occasion it just wouldn't pull and I had to rev the spuds off it in 4th to make progress, and as soon as I put it into 5th it just lost all power.
I had a very gentle 100 mile trip fearing it was new turbo time. It felt like I had no small turbo.
Van is a CXEB with 147k on it, so I sort of accept that a new turbo may be just around the corner.
Came home and used @mmi turbo diagnostic thread to run all the turbo tests and live data and it passed every VCDS test procedure.
So, not believing that a turbo cleaner squirted into the air intake while revving the engine would make any difference, I purchased the best reviewed cleaner, REVIVE, expecting it to be a waste of £34, but I was working on the 'shit or bust' principle of replacement turbo cost.
So, after a period of teaching my tame goldfish how to hold the revs at 2200rpm for a full minute, we commenced the procedure.
Disconnect air intake downstream of MAF, start from cold, hold revs at 2200rpm and spray in the first 250ml over the course of 60 seconds, drop revs to 1800 and repeat with next 250ml. Turn off engine for 3 minutes. Restart, 2200rpm, last 250ml over 60 seconds then leave to tick over.
During that last 250ml a fair bit of smelly crap came out of the exhaust.
I then took it for a 20 minute blast during which it did a DPF regen. I guess the crap it chucked out had filled the DPF so if I use this again I'll do it just after a regen with a nice empty DPF.
Anyway, this stuff works, and not just in a subtle way. The van is back to normal power, it pulls like a train from about 1300rpm in each gear. It's back to being quiet and smooth, and mpg is way up. My gut feeling is that a small part of this was maybe freeing up a sticking small turbo, or turbo vanes, but the rest of the improvement - mpg and smooth running - is that it's removed a ton of crap from the inlet manifold. I always thought the randomness of the rough idle was to do with sticking or partially shut/open manifold flaps with the fuel trim and timing working overtime to keep it running ok. But beng a lazy-arse I never looked at them in live data in VCDS.
Anyway, If you have noticed a progressive drop in performance and mpg and you've got a good few miles on the old beast then it may be worth investing in a bottle of this stuff and training the wife how to keep the accelerator depressed at a fixed position for 60 seconds (that's the difficult part btw).
