Sharker

Here is the scenario. Was driving the car to the gym, nothing special, not pushing it hard at all. Got to a stop sign, pulled away and something was not right.
Symptoms: Zero boost. I have a boost gauge, when under 2500 rpm is shows a vacuum like normal, when I step on the gas it goes to zero, normally it will show 11 under full boost.
When it should be on boost, the car falls flat on its face. It almost felt like the clutch was slipping, but the revs do not increase and it pulls fine at low, non boost rpm
I can hear the turbo spinning, it is not rattling
no smoke
no oil under car
I dropped it off at the dealer, who has an "old guy mechanic" who works on the air cooled cars. He cannot find the fault.

I will be picking it up this afternoon, and bringing it home to work on (not going to pay someone to pull the exhaust apart when I can do that myself.)

Let's get all the armchair quarterbacks on this, and let me know what you think may be the problem, and what to check first!


thanks in advance!

bweSteve

to me,... {as the arm chair expert - Ha!!},... since it was a situation of essentially immediate failure to spin up after sitting at a stop light,... I doubt it is a mechanical problem,... ie, I doubt it is a failed turbo, or something wrong with your exhaust (so I don't quite agree with starting to take your exhaust apart as a first step).

This sounds like an ignition problem, or maybe your boost controller under your seat.

My other thought is possibly a vacuum leak in or around your intercoooler. Have you looked at the charge tube behind your intercooler? (driver side front corner of the Intercooler).... possibly you had a hose clamp failure & it has slipped off.... (that can happen, especially since this occurred exactly when you were "pulling away". The boost starts to increase, and the pressure pops a hose connection off your intercooler - my only problem with that theory is that you would usually have to be WOT and creating a lot more pressure than just a normal "pull away". BUT, if it was about to fail anyway,.. then maybe less pressure build could still cause it to happen).




=Steve