I'm after some advice as I have a lack of power in my 2004 2.0d x-type. The car drives fine but the turbo is not kicking in. The turbo itself is not at fault it has been checked by several mechanics there is also no sign of smoke. The turbo has a mechanical vacuum actuator on it not the electrical one. Also the egr valve has been checked and is fine aswell.Nobody seems to be able to find the fault has anybody heard of this that could give me some advice? Anything would be appreciated as I'm scratching my head now not sure of my next move.

 

Have you checked the vanes inside the turbo? They might be sticking. You can check them this way:

Turn on your engine. Look above the turbo. You can see a small lever right between the compressor and turbine side of the turbo. Now pull off the small hose from vacuum actuator and try to see how the small lever falls, put back the hose and see how it rises. You want to see a very smooth lever movement. If the lever jerks, stutters or doesnt move much at all, then there is a problem.

Have you done any work on your turbo? Could it be that someone has tried to adjust the turbo lever? It has 2 adjusting points. One to adjust the vane lever travel length and the other to adjust the vacuum actuator lever length. They should have some setting markers on (white line or a small glue stain). Wrong adjustment on either one of them causes the turbo not kicking in.

 

I have checked that and the lever doesn't seem to move at all and there also doesn't seem to be much suction off that small hose.

 

Lever must move at least half an inch or so. If yours doesnt move at all, then theres your problem. Suction from the hose should be strong enough to hold it up if you put your finger in front of the hole and let it hang. Also you can feel the suction quite strongly. The vacuum pump itself sits on the top right side of the engine. It also connects to the EGR valve and the brake booster. Maybe theres some issues with the pump? Or something else on this system is cracked/leaking? Brake booster valve maybe?