DIY Car Repair... The Power of the Internet

I know everyone is super excited about how the internet is bringing cultures together and improving business but you've probably already gathered how I'm a bit of an odd duck who doesn't care about the things most sane people care about.

When I think of the power of the internet I think of things like do-it-yourself car repair.

I've had this problem with my Volkswagen (thanks AZ for the spelling correction) for a couple of months. Whenever I really step on the gas I hear this loud hissing noise. G also notices that their really isn't as much boost from the turbo as there used to be. Obvious problem - there is an air leak somewhere.

But where?

It's not like I don't take a gander at my hoses when I change my oil so if there were big chunks missing or clamps coming off I would know about it. It has to be a slit in a hose or some component like the wastegate or diverter valve has an internal failure.

And to make matters worse, it only happens when the turbo boosts above atmospheric pressure so it will be nearly impossible to reproduce without 1) a dyno or 2) strapping someone to the front of the car and driving around under high acceleration with the hood open. For the record if the good ol' 'net hadn't come to the rescue I would be trying option 3 (have someone stand on the brake while they rev the engine) since I'm far too cheap to actually go find a good dyno.

Anyway, before trying either of those I decided I would give my local "overly interested in our particular make/model of car" internet forum a shot.

So I wander over to the B5 garage forum (my car is built on the B5 VW/Audi chassis) and searched for "throttle hiss".

There are five results for that query

One of them is this
Another is this
Another is this

I figure if someone describes pretty much the exact symptoms I'm seeing and gets a response that says:

"No, this is about a 6 inch long hose, about 3/4 of an inch in diameter. Look at the throttle body. Then look at the intake to the rear of the throttle body. Start feeling hoses.

One is going to feel REAL soft and have a 4 inch tear in it."

I ought to at least give it a shot. So even though it's pretty late I grab our flashlight and head out to have a look. Sure enough, right in the inside of the L there is a ~1 inch split.

A little more googling tells me this part will cost ~$20 to purchase + some change for new clamps. I didn't ask but I'm guessing a mechanic would have run me ~$150 for this fix. [rant] And depending on the mechanic they probably would have gotten it wrong and I would have had to haul my now more broken car back their shop so I can let them continue to not fix it because heaven forbid if a repair shop messed up your car they would pay to have someone else fix it[/rant].

Anyway, all I know is since there are 85000000000000 people on the internet if there is a common failure mode for pretty much anything I own, I can probably go online and find a few dozen people who got fed up about it, knew enough about what was going on, and wrote it up compete with the part numbers I need and links to online retailers who will sell me the parts.