Folks,

My car died last week on the Teconic Parkway in NY. The main symptom was huge gobbs of black smoke and NO power. Coudn't even climb a hill faster than 10mph. I drove it about 20 miles in that condition before it actually stopped running when I left the parkway.

I got it towed to Joe's garage and he changed the fuel filters and checked for bad fuel. (problem seemed to start shortly after refueling). He then removed the down pipe from the turbo and confirmed that the turbo is siezed. The engine now starts and idles perfectly, but still smokes and has no power.

Now, my mechanic Nick is of the opinion that the siezed turbo is a secondary problem and that the original source of the smoke and stalling needs to be uncovered and corrected before fixing the turbo. He claims that even with a siezed turbo the engine should perform as a normally aspirated engine with less power, but not all that smoke. This seems to jive with broken turbo threads I've read here.

On the other hand Joe thinks the broken turbo is the whole problem. His experience with his turbo deisel truck was the same as mine when his turbo broke. It ran so poorly he had to get it towed.

So what do you guys think? Can a broken turbo disable a 603 engine and render it useless or is there something else wrong?

Thanks,

__________________
-Mike
'87 300TD 304kmi (RIP)
'95 Toyota Camry Wagon 125kmi