I was recently driving along with cruise control set 100km/h on a nice flat stretch of road when suddenly my speed dropped to 80km/h without any kind of warning.

I checked the warning lights on the dash and nothing was illuminated but in my rear view mirror I saw a lot of black smoke billowing out the back.

Given that I was in the middle of nowhere nearing nightfall, and knew I only had 15k to go to reach relative safety of a station with camping facilities and a telephone I pressed on but took it gently.

I noticed that when I eased back on the accelerator the smoke stopped.

The engine starts fine, idles fine, the oil is in good nick (service done only last week) and the coolant levels are good.

Are the symptoms that my D2 TD5 indicative of a delaminated intercooler hose? I am a bit of a distance away from any Land Rover specialist mechanic here.

Also, I noticed with my own fastidious fuel logging that my fuel consumption has inexplicably spiked in the day or two before the loss of power and black smoke. My guess would be that the hoses started to delaminate gradually then just gave up totally.

Does this sound right? Any other suggestions as to the problem?

Thanks in advance!