Hi,

Apologies in advance for the long post but I thought it's best to put everything I know about the issue in the hope that someone has an idea what my problem might be!

I just got a 2005 Jaguar X-Type 2.0 Diesel Estate (about a month ago), and on the first real long motorway run, after about an hour, suddenly I had very slow accelleration at all speeds (though the speed isn't limited at all), but as soon as I turn off and on, works beautifully as usual. Then, having to do a lot of long journeys it happened again after about an hour, and then again about half an hour after that, so I let it cool down for an hour at the services, and then did a further 1.5 hrs no problem.

There have not been any warning lights or errors on the dash at all.

After looking on here and other forums, I thought the problem could be a brief loss of power or earth from the battery as it has had to go a few revs before starting on cold mornings, and the battery to be honest looked a little knackered and was an easy fix, so I tried swapping that for another but no joy (bit of a long shot anyway).

The other things I saw on the forums that looked like contenders were coked up turbo, dirty egr valve or dying turbo actuator.

I should also note that there is no oil under the bonnet but quite a lot of soot buildup and looks like exhaust gas is leaking somewhere in the vacinity of the turbo, but haven't managed to find exactly where yet, though it's looking worryingly like it's where the linkage connecting the actuator comes out of the turbo.

I unhooked the actuator from the turbo and the turbo moves very freely (possibly because it's been dumping all its carbon into the engine bay).

The actuator itself however is completely impossible to move by hand, but I don't know if it's supposed to be like that with the resistance from the motor anyway? It would be great if someone can tell me that because if the actuator's knackered that could be it!

I took the electronic connector off the actuator and despite being all sooted up on the outside the contacts were pristine so I don't think it's a connection issue on that.

So, from what I've seen... the free movement of the turbo makes me think that's not clagged up, which is nice because I really don't want to have to swap that. The soot in the engine bay makes me think something with the EGR but I don't know enough about that to have much of an idea. To me the actuator's looking like the likely culprit but what's confusing me is the total lack of error lights or codes.

I'm totally new to this car and not much of a mechanic at the best of times, so if anyone could help by offering their opinion on the likely cause it would be massively appreciated!

Cheers!

Rup