So it's a VW Passat 1.9 TD right, and it suddenly started to blow loads of white smoke whilst on the motorway whilst making a funny noise. It's white but also blueish and smells like oil. Doesn't do it at idle, only when you gun it a bit or drive. I thought head gasket at first, but on opening the bonnet there's a bad rattle coming from the turbo every few seconds, and when using a listening stick on the turbo it sounds like a bag of nails. So I am thinking turbo, leaking oil into the intake or exhaust. Not exactly sure what kind of turbo it is.. KKK maybe.. does that mean that any KKK will fit?

The sticky part is that it's my car, but I've lent it these last couple of months to my neighbour who needs it – with a view to buy it, but they don't currently have the money. Thing is, it's an old car and he hasn't been paying it enough attention. It's been run for a while very low on coolant and oil. So the question is, do I make him pay for it or do I discount the price of the car? I mean, it's his car effectively, and it's his miles and possible lack of maintenence that's caused it, but it's still technically mine. The other factor is they are very poor and jobless currently, so it's even worse to ask them to pay.

Firstly correctly diagnose the peoblemo.
Pull off the jubilee clip on the intake and remove the black rubber flexi pipe. Put you finger inside and feel the center of the shaft , should only be microns of movement vertically, and should spin easilly by spinning. Anymore then .1 – .2 mm of movement and the shaft seals / running surfaces are shot. Might be lack of oil, milage, incorrect oil , old oil, not letting it cool for last 5 mins of journey so its glowing hot and the oils is not going round ( cokes up the gallery real quick )
Stripped a few down and finding a known good replacement is tricky. Or send it away fora rebuild , They are barstids to remove because of the heat cycles .
Does sound like the shaft seals, or a blocked crankcase breather, or if its low on coolant a head gasket fail allowing pressurised coolant into the cylinders

Sounds pretty much like the turbo is goosed if it only does it under load (as suggested above).
Are you a competent mechanic & can replace it yourself? It's not a big job, just messy & can take a bit of time if there's not much room in the engine bay.
You could easily find out what turbo it needs from the web & buy a recon one from ebay to fit yourself – or get a mate to do it & sell it to them for full price.

The neighbour obviously can't afford to run it properly though, let alone buy it, ever.

I've found a load on ebay for £75 ish off Citroen Xantias – it's apparently kkk k03 or k14 on that car, lots of k14s around. There are also rebuild kits – could that be easier?

It had been run very low on coolant – so much so that there was air in the top radiator hose – but that was re-filled a month or so before this failure, and kept topped up – after I lectured him a bit 🙂

You need to get the right type of turbo for the car, chances are the ones of a xantia won't be right as there are literally hundreds. Even the same engine can have different types (the turbo on my Dad's 525D went a couple of months ago and could have been any of 4 even in a narrow age band) so you'll need to get the data of the turbo and take it from there.

Likewise tho there are quite a few different turbos that'll fit on that engine, according to the web…

Possibly but will they work with the ecu, give too much or too little boost, are they fixed or variable vane etc etc.

No ECU in this old beast 🙂

Update: Finally got the bugger off after lots of thrutching and swearing.. I'd noticed that there was a good bit of play on the compressor end of the shaft, but when I took it and looked inside the turbine wheel was rattling around in there… shaft snapped.

Comedy moment though when I moved the car into my drive with no boost and no exhaust connected. Horrible noise and loads of thick filthy black smoke pouring out from under the bonnet.. hehe.. 🙂

Chap at work had new turbo in his Galaxy recently, £600 fitted, but that was a brand new one. You should fix it on the cheap & sell on.