TURBO ACTUATOR

[Solentview]

Hope somebody can help - had to take our Alhambra (BRT engine) into a local VW specialist a few days ago, after the yellow coil warning light illuminated during a trip back down the A34 with the wife at the wheel. The vehicle did not drop into Limp Mode and the journey was completed successfully, although SWMBO reported that the vehicle was not responding as expected on up gradients.
I do not have the actual fault codes, but the worksheet details an 'overboost' fault and 'turbo actuator sticking'. The actuator was duly freed off (very easily, apparently), fault codes cleared, road tested, and vehicle declared serviceable.
My (naive) question  - is the turbo actuator something that would respond to periodical DIY treatment with something like WD40. If so, can it be tackled form the top or is it only accessible from underneath, and precisely what part needs to be treated?
Incidentally, the coil light showed itself on Thursday evening, but did not re-appear the following morning when the vehicle was re-started, but I took it in for diagnostics just to be on the safe side.
PS: is it my old eyes, or do the website pages look a bit odd at the moment - colours are washed out and subject lists do not appear to be sequenced properly?
Solentview

[Chrispb]

Am not familiar with the 2 litre engine but if it's similar to the 1.9 it would be from underneath the car and you would need to remove the undercover.
Am not sure if the 2.0 turbo actuator is still vacuum operated like the 1.9 so will leave it to someone that does know.

As for the website there has been some problems and there is still some tweaking going on!

[johnnyroper]

99% sure brt is still a PD engine and also still vac controlled VNT on the turbo. Freeing up the actuator with wd40 would not really be an option in my opinion as it?s more than likely sticking turbo vanes. I suspect what they have done is mechanically operate the vnt arm to un seize it.

The issue will probably reveal itself again,you can go the turbo strip route to clean it or go with the mr muscle clean and Italian tune up route. Personally mr muscle would win out for me,I did it on my old 1.9 and didn?t suffer any other issues. I did however give it a motorway run at higher rpm to burn the rubbish off.  70mph in 4th for 20 to 30 miles. Did this ever couple of weeks. Also good to give it a full throttle blast down slip road on to motorway in 3rd to exercise those vanes

[Solentview]

Thank you, both - JR: does the Mr Muscle method involve disconnecting the down pipe from the turbo and applying MM cleaner directly onto the vanes on the output side, as depicted in various online video tutorials?

The 09 BRT/PD engine incorporates a DPF in the exhaust system, and I would be interested to hear from any other BRT owners who have tried the MM route, successfully, without knock-on ill-effects in the filter.

Anyway - thanks again...

[johnnyroper]

You can do it that way but with mine I inserted a length of silicone hose down the egr outlet on manifold to inject the mr muscle.

I cannot say 100% but I don?t think it will do damage to the dpf,I have done a golf with a dpf previously and there were no adverse affects.