Just had my outlander for a week towing my caravan for the first time and found lost all power going up hills that bad had to put my warning lights on to stagger up telegraph hill towards exeter camp site made it but see If problem goes when I start up .back to mitsubishi dealears on my return.

 

Probably popped an intercooler pipe.

 

If you read this thread from the beginning you will see that the eventual cure,... (Despite what all the diagnostic equipment indicated ) was a new turbo unit. Since having that fitted the car has been trouble free with an increase of power and mpg. Saying that I have just sold it with 37000 miles recorded. A new Ford Kuga arriving shortly. , hope I have done the right thing!!

 

The problem is when accelerating rapidly, the turbo over boosts and the engine looses power.
If you stop the car, cut the engine and the restart the engine, power is back to normal, that is until you repeat the above.
In my case, I followed the advice of a Motoring organisation on how to save fuel, i.e. changing gear early, not accelerating rapidly and to keep to a low speed.
In the case of the Outlander, this saves a few pence on fuel but will cost you a fortune in turbo repairs.
The veins on the turbo build up with carbon, which creates the problem.
My Dealership did not have a clue and claimed never to have heard of the problem before. I spent several hundred pounds with them doing trial and error before they said I needed a new turbo at around £2100 including fitting. (My car had done 43K miles)
I went to a local turbo specialist in Derby; they listened to the engine and identified the problem immediately.
They removed and cleaned the turbo and it cost £800. My car runs fine now.
Apparently it is very labour intensive to remove the turbo from an outlander.
They recommended if I was to continue to drive economically, that once a month, I should engage second gear and hold the revs quite high for a period of time and then repeat this in 3rd gear. And that should keep the turbo carbon free.
This procedure will not rectify a turbo once the carbon has built up in the turbo veins.
They said it is a very common problem with taxis driving around town as the turbo is not being used, so carbons up.
This seems to be a common problem with outlanders – I have had several people contact me with the same problem and have now had it rectified.

We also tow a caravan and it also happened when overtaking on a hill.

 

Dennis, That makes sense to me, I was never a boy racer, always drove it gently to minimise fuel consumption so that is probably what caused mine to fail. I do recall now the odd ' puff' of black smoke from the exhaust , must have been a build up of ' soot' in the turbo.
Agree that the turbo is difficult to remove, the steering column has to be removed to facilitate this.
One thing that puzzles me is that this fault is only reported by outlander owners, I did research a lot of VW sites / forums and this fault was never mentioned on those even though the mitsu is fitted with the VW engine

 

I disagree with that entirely. Black smoke from a diesel has nothing to do with a turbo. If you're concerned about the condition of the turbo, just take off the intake pipe and examine the compressor wheel.

 

Started up after being left for the night all working ok if I popped an intercooler pipe would. This stay in limp mode.

 

Interesting. What's the check engine light code?

 

I bought a 57 plate Outlander recently to pull my caravan. On 2 occasions while towing I lost power, limping to my destination thinking the problem was with the caravan brakes. Eventually it happened without the caravan. I spoke to a colleague who had the same problem with his 2.0 Golf diesel. His advice was to put 100mg of Millers Oils Diesel Power Eco Max into a full tank of petrol. This removes the carbon deposits from the engine and turbo and touch wood it has worked wonders. It even improved my MPG as well. It's worth a try for £14.99.

 

This could also be the DPF blocking up, my car has done this a few times and most recently developed a sort of judder when driving at a steady pace in any gfear but most nociable in first and the garage said the faults stored were swirl flaps which have been cleaned out and freed off then the egr that has been replaced and then DPF blockage, the garage has run some cleaner through, it was reading as 98% blocked and after he gave me it back was reading 75% i have a 900 mile round trip to Aberdeen so he said give it a run up there and back and bring it back in after and see what its saying then and hopefuly the light will go off, I noticed the difference when driving up here, the mpg was better and I didnt feel any judder either! So hopefully thats this problem resolved, I also tow a caravan with my car and experienced the loss of power while going uphill.
Out of interest has anyone had there 2.0 tdi re-mapped for me bhp/tourque???