So I'm driving back to Surrey from Hammersmith earlier tonight, I've got an Audi behind me on the A3 wanting to break the speed limit. The speed limit is changing up a few miles per hour, so I think, I'll down it a few gears and show this muppet what he's pissing off. As I do so and floor it, the car makes a loud BANG, could swear I saw a load of smoke out of the exhausts and it's running like a bag of spanners, "NO MY TURBOS!".

 

Water temperature and oil pressure are both perfect and below 2000 revs it's smooth as a babies bum, so I try to coast gently up the rest of the A3, hoping to limp it back to Surrey and if need be, take it to my old tuners in Tolworth in the morning to see whether I've blown a turbo or whatever. But a few miles up the road, it becomes undriveable, the engine is constantly like a bag of spanners, lumpy, spluttery, back firing, oh my god I've killed my car!

 

So I pull into a small back street off the A3 and the car just dies. My mate rings me and I tell him, he says he's just finishing up at work and he'll come find me with tools in case I've blown a hose off or something. I'm confused though, nothing is missing in the engine, no holes, no hoses are off, I pull on things, push things, everything's fine, remember it held oil pressure and water temp too, WTF!?!?!?!?

 

I ring Mikey, "My car just went bang", "Oh ****", "I know!", "Hope it's not the head gasket", "I'm gunna see what I can sort and I'll let you know".

 

I go back to the engine bay and push on a few more connectors, coil pack connectors, injector plugs, etc. and I start the car again, smooth as a babies whatsit, WTF! I rev it, perfect, I rev it into boost, perfect, WTF WTF WTF!

 

So I ring my mate back and tell him it's fine, just meet me at the hotel. All the way back to the hotel, I'm gently giving it more and more boost to see what it does, not even a twitch, it's absolutely perfect, almost better than it was before the incident! When I get to the hotel I ring Mikey again, "WTF man the car was suddenly fine, I'm back at my hotel now", "how long did you drive it for before it did what it did?", "About half an hour in traffic", "PTU", "What?", "PTU might be gone", "But I JUST replaced that yesterday!", "Yeah I know, but I reckon it's the PTU".

 

I only remembered 10 minutes after the conversation, that one of the connectors I pushed on, was the PTU connector on the top, which also happens to have a broken clip, so doesn't clip to the PTU properly. When I first got the car, the PTU was all strapped up with a zip tie, since replacing the cam belt and then the PTU itself, I've not put another Zip tie on it, so hoping that this was indeed what caused it, I'll be stopping by Halfrauds on the way to the office in the morning for what is clearly a motoring essential! Anyone happen to have had a similar experience and think this might be something else? please let me know, but the last little bit before the hotel, I really stuck it to the car, thinking at worst I'll blow it up and coast it into the hotel to park it and get it towed home, it was AWESOME! so god knows! lol

Had similar around 6 years ago and that was with a series 2 PTU, this usues a secondary connector harness and it had somehow slipped out, it's now cable tied to the main harness and PTU itself lol

 

Can't remember if it blew any smoke at the time, but i do recall a bang and a really erractic engine that soon cut out.

Usally something like this is a blown pipe and i spent ages checking before simply pushing every connector and trying the car, pushed the PTU harness tried again and woof, of she went!

Smithy

Good to hear you got it fixed mate that must of been an awfull feeling hearing it go bang then running lumpy till it stoped.But a lesson to us all make shure everything fits as it should:yes:

whole time i was reading that i was thinking bottom end, glad it wasnt and its sorted, just shows not to over look the simple things

whole time i was reading that i was thinking bottom end, glad it wasnt and its sorted, just shows not to over look the simple things

 

yeagh good its sorted itself

 

r u selling up mr wilson?

yeagh good its sorted itself

 

r u selling up mr wilson?

 

no mate, was bored and just fired an add up to see what got offered, ment to take it down again

no mate, was bored and just fired an add up to see what got offered, ment to take it down again

 

you have to much time on your hands you need get out away from that pc i know the feeling :lol:

ano bud lol, back to school in august!!, hate being off

PTU was my problem the other day, loose connection! glad you're sorted mate!

I have never followed through quite that quickly before in my life! Thankfully I'm back in Donny now and it seems fine, I do think I've still got a boost leak and there are definitely things I still need to sort, but for the most part, the car is fine. Thanks for the kind words guys.