Seat Toledo Acceleration Very Slow

Nazlfc

Active Member
Sep 28, 2009
65
0
Hi All,

Over the weekend I went on a 110 mile round trip on the motorway and noticed a considerable loss of acceleration driving my Seat Toledo MK2 TDI 2001 SE. I've been noticing for a while between 2nd and third and sometimes 3rd and 4th gears that the acceleration was taking an enormous time than normal. I don't drive the car very often and perhaps that has been one of the causes but for a while, these symptoms were noticeable in the lower speeds. However, on the weekend drive, it was also apparent on the motorway at 50/60/70 I could barely accelerate to 70 on the motorway.

I don't know whether it is the clutch or MAF sensor (which I have read on other threads) but do these symptoms relate to anyone and can anyone offer some advice if they've experienced something similar and have resolved the problem. There is also an occasional judder when moving from 1st to second gear as well which on a previous car had resulted in a clutch failure.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Happy to offer additional information to isolate the problem/solution.

Thanks
 

chriswales6

Active Member
Mar 2, 2016
294
47
Not sure if you've still got the car & the problem. If you have the 110 TDI then it sounds very much like sticky turbo vanes.
With sticky vanes the car will go into limp mode above 3,000 revs and resets when you restart.
There's plenty of information online about it, very common with Seat/VW/Audi/Skoda VNT turbos.

Basically the turbo control vanes get stuck with soot from the exhaust.
You can clear them by driving the car more on the motorway, getting the turbo hot. This worked for me and stopped my limp mode.
Or you could try cleaning the turbo with oven cleaner, there's information online and YouTube showing how to do this.