So my wife and son are heading from Texas to California. They are near flagstaff AZ and the car lost power. The engine sounds weird. My son says no check engine light. Any ideas? Please help

 

My son (not very mechanically inclined) says that he started it this morning and says it makes a whistling noise, like turbo or something. He still says that there is no engine light lit up. Any ideas?

 

I got a feeling that the whistling is the turbo bearings. What is the chance of driving it 700 miles to home? Anything I need to be aware of?

 

Taking a chance but, a 1/2 quart of transmission fluid or marvel mystery oil added to the engine oil might help.

 

There’s got to be a parts store, repair shop, tire store or something similar closer than 700 miles. Find one of this places that can give you an opinion.
If it lost power as you stated, you probably don’t want to drive it anymore.

 

They are in Arizona, he feels the power loss as he goes up hills. He drove it doing 60 mph for 70 miles until he hit flagstaff. They found an auto repair shop open today, the guy thinks it is the turbo, said something about oil being in it or something. The guy that knows more about turbos will be there tomorrow. I hate shops working on my stuff, but I’m at their mercy this time. Thanks for the replies, I am having anxiety over this whole ordeal.

 

Oil in the turbo does not necessarily condemn the turbo. The PCV system dumps oil vapor into the mouth of the turbo whenever boosting. It is much worse with a worn engine.

With no codes to help with diagnosis, best to start with basics.

Start by pulling the valve cover and inspecting the timing chain. Any slack at all is bad.

If the timing chain is tight, proceed with a compression test. A cylinder leak down test may be needed if compression is less than great.

Post your findings here.

 

The first shop said that there was oil in the air intake #2, I think that is the corrugated tube at the top left (passenger side) of the engine. I don’t think this has anything to do with the whistling, but could this be due to a bad pcv valve somewhere or is this a strictly worn engine? Maybe this is even expected for and engine that has 125k miles on it. The guy said that there was a TSB, possibly TSB 1715452. Any one have a link for this? The guy that was supposed to fix it at the first shop did not make it to work today so we went to a different shop. I’ll post more details as they come. Thanks

 

The second shop replaced the turbo and did an oil change. Total bill was just under $2500.