Decided to drive down to USC at Santa Pod yesterday and wish I hadn't bothered now. Got about 70 miles from home on the M6, went to overtake someone at 80 and suddenly all the power disappeared. Limped over to the hard shoulder and the car is jerking and rocking like a mechanical bull so I stopped, popped the bonnet and switched off the engine. Can't see anything obvious and there isn't any oil under the car so I let the engine cool for quarter of an hour then start checking pipes and connections and find the pipe from the intercooler to the inlet manifold has come out. Put it back and start the car and it starts idling at about 1200 rpm! Let it run for a couple of minutes but the revs don't drop. Decide to drive it a couple of hundred yards down the shoulder and there's no power at all, the engine doesn't come on boost (needle never goes above 0 on boost gauge) and I have to keep changing up gears to get a smooth ride.
Turn the engine off again and leave it for a good half an hour to cool down and try again, this time he engine runs like it's on 3 cylinders and there is no oil pressure so I shut it off and decide there must be something seriously wrong :-(
I call the AA but as I'm not a member I have to join first and also pay a surcharge for them to attend immediately, that costs me £105. When the guy arrives he looks under the bonnet, tries to take the cam belt cover off to "see if it's slipped around a bit" but doesn't succeed, starts the car and revs it a little, notices a slight rattle at about 2500 rpm, shuts the engine off and says it sounds like the cam or the cam followers and whatever it is it isn't a roadside repair. I ask him what he can do then and he says he can't take us where we're going or take us home because it's too far and we have the wrong type of cover. I ask if we can upgrade to the right type of cover and get home so he calls base and they say, yes we can but they couldn't take us home for 24 hours then.
Anyway, to cut a long story short the AA book us a private recovery firm at a further cost of £244 to get us home and we lost the money we paid for the hotel room because cancellations had to be made before 1pm. So it's cost us over £400 and I still don't know what is wrong with the car or how much it's going to cost to fix.
Anyone any ideas as to what the problem could be? Reading the forums on sxoc.com suggests the symptoms could be a sign of anything from under-fuelling, or timing, or leaky vacuum, to big end bearings or turbo failure! I'm going to go and look again today but I doubt I'll find anything I can fix easily so any pointers to a possible cause would be appreciated.
Andy