Howdy, all.

Coming back from the folks post-Christmas, car full of stuff and people, holding a solid 120 kph, when suddenly, there's a black cloud following us. This is immediately coupled with a profound stumbling under power and bad vibrations through the shifter. Something is unhappy beneath the hood.

I cripple the car home, noting that whenever the needle on the boost gauge makes it into the yellow zone, she does her horrible little dance - stumbling, cloud, immediate loss of power, bad shift vibration. If I back off and keep the needle below the yellow bar, all is well. The engine runs smoothly, no shivering shifter syndrome, no cloud. Pour on the steam for a hill, boost goes up, and we're back to the bad behaviour.

The turbo has been bleeding oil for some time now. I've taken it by the local Volvo specialists and they immediately talked turbo replacement/rebuild, quoting me c. $1000. From the way she's behaving, it looks like I need to spend the money. Three questions:

1) Does my diagnosis - pooched turbo - sound correct to you?
2) Is $1000 a fair price for a turbo rebuild/replacement?
3) What does a good used turbo run one ordinarily?

Many thanks in advance, folks.

Dan