I've only had this car for a few weeks, but I fell in love with it for the big pickup the turbo had. When the car came up on 3000 rpm, the turbo starting purring and the car got up and went. But now, a couple weeks in, the turbo isn't hitting very hard-- the car accelerates well, but it's steady. You don't feel that turbo picking up, in fact you feel very little turbo hitting the car.

And yet, the dealership mechanics swear up and down it's fine-- but they haven't even checked it out or ran any tests. Just test drove it, and said it felt fine.

So what can I do to check? I'm thoroughly pissed off at the dealership for not even checking, and I want to take it to another mechanic and have them run tests, but I don't know what.

 

Are you running cheap/Regular gasoline? If you are then the engine control unit is smart enough to dial back the power settings to protect the engine from self destruction.

 

No, I'm using Premium 91 Octane

 

Look for loose hoses / clamps - easy place to loose boost.

 

What year car and how many miles?

 

It's a 2008 with 57,xxx on it.

And I'll look around for loose hoses and the such, but I'm not too familiar with this engine compartment with the giant intake(or what I assume it is for the turbo) on covering half the compartment in the center.

 

Hmmm, I find myself wondering if the previous owner used crap oil and/or if said oil was rarely if ever changed. This is of course a worst case scenario, but I have seen cars where the turbo bearings are so cruded up the turbine is barely able to spin.

 

So would I have to take the turbo out to clean it? Sounds like a possibility, but the only problem is the change in boost happened pretty quickly, not a slow thing. One day it was fine, then the next day it wasn't.

 

No, if it's the turbo it will need to be rebuilt. That said, if it was on one day and off the next then it doesn't sound like a turbo issue. Has your fuel economy suffered or has anything else changed?

 

No, my fuel economy is just as good, and I did have a problem with cylinder misfire, mechanics chocked it up to a wet plug and bad coils. Changed those, but when I hit the accelerator hard, in addition to not getting much boost, I notice a very faint flutter, or misfire. Keep it mind it's barely noticeable, and seems to be what boost is hitting is coming in spurts. Also only happens in high 4's going into the 5's.