Driving at speed limit on us highway in heavy traffic in the near northern suburbs of chicago, experienced sudden loss of power. vehicle began running very rough and eventually stalled in left lane. sudden lack of power, stall and unanticipated loss of speed nearly caused accident and did cause major traffic back up. vehicle was towed to local shop. diagnosis determined cause of sudden power loss was damaged turbochargers (x2). turbo impeller bearings were completely destroyed due to lubrication starvation, which caused disintegration of turbocharger impellers. shop indicated this is a known problem with the audi (vag) 4.0 twin turbo v-8 engines. supporting this notion, the dealer had the turbos and associated repair parts in stock (over $6,000 of parts). vehicle is meticulously maintained by certified audi dealer. vehicle indicated about 63,000 miles on odometer at time of incident. vag uses this engine in several models across the audi line: s6, s7, rs7, a8, and s8 (some modifications between some models).
Depressing accelerator at first failed to move the car; then it surged until braked; then it failed to move the car on the next depression; again followed by a surge. this happened as i was turning into a lane of oncoming cars where i had plenty of time to make the turn safely but that time was chewed up trying to get the car moving. the exact same thing happened again except this time i expected non-performance and waited 2 or 3 minutes for all traffic to stop at a light. then the same thing happened again. there is no doubt this could lead to a fatal crash. *tr