Hi, struggling to get solid ideas about this as find similar situations around the forums but with slightly different symptoms etc.

My 2007 Fusion (fiesta type) 1.4 TDCi suddenly (overnight) went from working fine to having a massive loss of power. Best described, in my small estate roads, you don't notice whilst trundling away slowly from parking and sticking around 20mph, but if I was in 2nd gear at 20mph and put my foot right down, very little would happen.
Pulling away from lights at a dual carriageway, however, its really clear, no matter what gear I have very little power. On flat dual carriageway from stationary, it must have taken me 30 seconds to get the car towards 30mph using all the revs and lower gears I could. On the slightest upwards incline, the car loses power. Regardless of gear, it tops out at about 55mph and feels and sounds pretty rough in the process. Parked in neutral, putting the acc pedal to the floor has been topping out at 2.5k rpm with white smoke following from exhaust. Thin clouds of white smoke also seems to appear intermittently from under the front hood at times.

Error code P0404 (EGR) is the only trouble code appearing. Intake hoses leading to turbo have thin amount of oil inside them. I don't actually know what the smaller hose that joins the very wide turbo air intake hose is called/for - which leads towards the air filter box but joins a connector just below it - but that hose is oily inside and out, with the part it connects to pretty clogged with solid oily gunge. The turbo itself, I don't really know - its a bit oily on that easily accessed intake side (shown below). I haven't gone any deeper into it than that.

Two other side points: Since I bought it a year back, it has generally had a very slight and slow oil leak. The highest up I can see any oil (and really the only place that seems to have wet/fresh oil ever) is near the turbo air intake (and particularly on that smaller hose that joins the elbow of the wide air intake hose)...
It used to misfire slightly after long journeys at high speed and revs (e.g. driving 200mph mostly at >60mph solidy), and at that point I changed the fuel filter maybe a few months ago. Although I was lazy when priming, and just used the priming bulb to fill it up rather than injecting fuel into the filter directly, it started first time and had been fine since then.

I gather it could quite simply need a new EGR putting in - but I read around and worry that if the EGR is faulty and sticking, it could be something more organic like the turbo that is causing that problem/damage and so I'd be installing a new >£100 part only for it to fail soon after?

Any insights would be much appreciated, and I'll be sure to update with any progress either based on replies, or if I manage to get it sorted myself. Thanks!



turbo intake side with intake hose disconnected