A3 1.8T, turbo blown

[mnadeem1984]

Well, my car has been fine since i bought it (9 months) but today, after two hours of driving, the engine oil light came on. Checked the level, all ok. Checked to see all hoses, cables etc were ok, all ok. Turned the car off, it would go, but after 2 minutes would come back on. Great! /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smirk.gif

Took it to local indy, he recommended an engine flush, oil change and filter change, since it had done 5500 miles since last oil change. Got down to eurocarparts, purchased the stuff. Can for flush said pour into engine and let it run for 15 mins. Which I did. (i did ask the guy at eurocp, if it was suitable for turbo'd engine, he did say it was). Neway, did the oil change etc. Started the car, everythings ok.

Went down the road and noticed theres no turbo. No whistle, no diverter valve noise or anything. Put my vag-com on, no fault codes whatsoever!

Been told by an audi specialist, its likely the turbo's gone. Hes charging me £400 all in to recondition my one and labour etc.

Is this possible?? What should i do?? /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/confused.gif

 

[VAGMAN1]

Get a 2nd opinion first of all

but £400 all in seems reasonable - I've just had my turbo refurbed and that was £258. Did all the work myself 1/2 day to remove and another 1/2 day to refit. I assume the garage has quoted for all the seals/gaskets that will need replacing?

question has to be asked though why has your turbo blown? mine was sticking due to a mixture of oil (misting out from inside the oil chamber of the turbo) and exhaust soot - hence sticking the vanes open and causing overboost and subsequent limp mode. Bear in mind my TDI had done 146K at that point!

 

[mnadeem1984]

mines has only done 87k. The only thing i can think of is the engine flush? do you guys use em in your turbo'd cars.

The breakdown is:
£225 Refurb
£130 Labour
£40 breather hose/pipe

Totalling £395.
Now, i am gonna get this knocked down because i have had alot of work done from these guys before.

 

[VAGMAN1]

engine flush shouldn't cause the turbo to go.

how much flush did you put in? if it was only 500ml, for example, then no way should it cause any problems.

you really have to get to the root cause of what has caused the turbo to pack up - are you absolutely certain the trubo is stuffed? have you had a diagnostic done to see if the car has logged any fault codes? I think i'd get a diagnostic done first before spending out to get the turbo fixed, as if you havn't solved what caused the problem then it could happen again.

 

[mnadeem1984]

i got vagcom myself. no fault codes wotsoever...

is there anything else i can do, because the car is going in tmorro at 10 am.

The car gives white smoke. The turbo makes this low pitch humming noise. Normally its a whistle (really high pitch).

 

[VAGMAN1]

if there's no fault codes then your a bit stuck......

all you can do is get the garage to state that this is the turbo is the problem and if it isn't fixed after a turbo refurb then you'll be asking for your money back!

 

[simch]

Oil flush..........1st,why put that in anyway........? 5500 miles is NOTHING for modern oil, oil flush is for 1.1 fiesta's from the 70's!

Secondly, I cannot see how it could dmage the turbo anyway,unless you drained out all the oil first and ran the motor on just flush, orif by adding the flush you have overfilled it ridiculously?
The original problem, oil light on, wa it oil level light or oil pressure> It could be an oil feed to the turbo is leaking or blocked, but unlikely TBH.
No turbo noise could be seized turbo due no oil, or it could be a boost pipe blown off somewhere, most common is on the intercooler under the front of the drivers side wing.
Whether it would show on VAG com, well it should do but sometimes it wont, depending on the size and type of leak. I wuld think a knacked turbo woudl show on VAG come too?

As for refub of your turbo.......if it has seized, have a new one. K03 s's are availabel NEW for about £300-350, wht "refurb" it, (whatever that means!) If it has seized or blown it will never be right.
The TDI ones are refurb able, they need cleaning as the adj vanes get clogged, like the guy above said. But a 18T one pretty much wither works or does not!
The smoke you mention may be the key to this. If you turbo goes, usually you will get a lot of smoke, as oil gets into the red hot turbo. But smoke would be BLUE!!
WHITE smoke sounds like water getting in there.......now it could be form the turbo housing, but it also could be a head gasket. SO before they go changing the turbo, I would ask for a pressure test on the water system, and a compression test on the head too. If you get loss of compression as well as increased presure in the water, its likely a HG. If its just pressure in the waer, it could be wither HG or Turbo. If no pressure in the water, or oil in the water, its a mystery!!

 

[mnadeem1984]

well da garage got back to me. The said the turbo definately had seized up due to the oil pump failure. Sounds about right as the oil light was comin on constantly. Even after oil change it was doing it.

The turbo then seized due to not enough oil gettin to it. Is this right?

 

[simch]

Oil pump failure can happen,it was quite common on some early cars to be fair.

I beeive there is something on the VW driver website about it? Try autometrix.co.uk, I think its on there.

If the turbo has siezed, so yourself a favour and get a new one. A K03 s is available at decent money from A-M Motorsport, Mike Heath who is on Seatcupra.net as "shock XE". They have a special in their subsection on Seatcupra at present too, check it out!
Good news is, with a remap a K03 s can get 235+hp! If you had one on already fair enough, but if yours is a K03, (non S) you will be able to get a few more ponies once done.

I think £300 odd will get you turbo off A-M.

Good Luck

 

[ANDYTQ]

I had my turbo from Mike ,great service and no problems.I f you have ko3,you may as well fit a "s" ,the power pulls a bit longer up the rev range. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/beerchug.gifAndy

 

[mnadeem1984]

well had the car back. drove it for 30 mins slowly. then gave it abit. car was going beautiful, although i had a little hum at lower revs and then a nice whistle and higher revs. The forge diverter valve also sounded good.

After 10 mins of driving abit rough, oil light come on again, and then 30 seconds later, turbo make all sorts of noises as well as engine making a really loud tapetty sound. Car was then towed home to stop any further damage.

Its going back in tomorrow as i have 12 mnths guarantee.