BKD Turbo oil feed pipe leak

[rabbituk]

For the 3rd time in as many years I have had a new turbo oil feed pipe and union fitted to the turbo on my 2006 2.0 TDI sportback with 196k on the clock. It's costing roughly £275 a time and is pretty inconvenient - this time I was 100 miles away so needed a tow as the leak was so profuse. There's also the embarrassment of having to cancel an arrangement when it does happen. Each time the repair was carried out by a different garage (I move around a lot for work). I've spoken to each of the garages and none of them can explain why it keeps leaking in this area. The turbo is a remanufactured part (turboactive.com) that was fitted at the start of this saga - ironically I was then trying to solve a much smaller oil leak that was between the hot and cold sides.

If the oil drain from the turbo was blocked, surely the turbo wouldn't work. Since the turbo always does seem to work, I don't think this is a problem.
Could it be a heat dissipation issue? The oil feed pipe and union are visibly fine when removed from the car. So perhaps they are ever so slightly distorted.

Any experience or ideas as to why this keeps happening would be greatly appreciated.

 

[rabbituk]

For the moment, I think I'll start with more frequent oil changes. So far I've been following the longlife servicing routine. I do a lot of miles so always I hit the 20k mark rather than 2 years. Perhaps if I change oil and filter every 5k miles and then see whether the current pipe lasts more than 16k miles.

 

[aqibi2000]

You actually leave the oil for 20k per change holy....

 

[Rideen]

For the moment, I think I'll start with more frequent oil changes. So far I've been following the longlife servicing routine. I do a lot of miles so always I hit the 20k mark rather than 2 years. Perhaps if I change oil and filter every 5k miles and then see whether the current pipe lasts more than 16k miles.

Longlife is a marketing trick in my opinion and works decently only while car is new-ish. For a 12 year old car, I'd say change oil every year or 5-8k miles. I used to have BKD and I changed oil twice a year (with about 3000 miles between the changes) and it lasted until 300 000+ km on the clock then I sold it.

 

[JimS3]

If the oil drain was totally blocked your turbo would fail in minutes.

Are you having genuine oil feed pipes fitted?

Maybe the recon turbo has misshaped or damaged threads. Can’t imagine you have been supplied with 3 faulty feed pipes!

Odd one this.

But really, don’t leave oil in for 20K, especially on a turbo car.

 

[rabbituk]

Longlife is a marketing trick in my opinion and works decently only while car is new-ish. For a 12 year old car, I'd say change oil every year or 5-8k miles. I used to have BKD and I changed oil twice a year (with about 3000 miles between the changes) and it lasted until 300 000+ km on the clock then I sold it.

Yes I am starting to see that this longlife issue being a marketing trick is the concenus amongst many people on the forums. Probably I also need to be looking underneath the hood a bit more often now that she's getting on a little bit. In recent years I have to admit I've outsourced pretty much everything and so haven't had the chance to notice the small problems that need to be nipped in the bud early.

 

[rabbituk]

If the oil drain was totally blocked your turbo would fail in minutes.

Are you having genuine oil feed pipes fitted?

Maybe the recon turbo has misshaped or damaged threads. Can’t imagine you have been supplied with 3 faulty feed pipes!

Odd one this.

But really, don’t leave oil in for 20K, especially on a turbo car.

I believe the pipes are genuine, the cost is £21.51+VAT for the union and £46.21+VAT for the oil feed pipe itself.

I'm not convinced that a thread on the turbo being miss shaped could cause this because surely the oil would leak from there first. It was definitely leaking from between the oil feed pipe and union. There is a picture here that shows the union sitting in the turbo housing without the oil feed pipe. https://img.photobucket.com/albums/v70/Axios/Audi/Parts/2011_01_25_0476.jpg It looks pretty solid

Definitely going to start 5k services. Is there any harm in setting the car computer to fixed service intervals via VCDS?

 

[Daveyonthemove]

I doubt there is much point to changing the interval on VCDS as you will still be doing it much earlier than the 10k warning, but it won't hurt.
If you know someone in the trade with a TPS account, you can get 5 litres of oil for around £20, but for a couple of quid more you can buy it on Ebay so it's cheap enough to do often.

 

[Rideen]

Also, on a side note, since the car already has 196k on the clock, you could switch to 5W40 fully synthetic oil (I used Castrol Edge) instead of 5W30 if that's what you're running. It's generally a good idea to switch to a higher viscosity oil in a diesel that has munched many miles.

Also, 2006 BKD shouldn't have DPF filter so no harm can be done by doing this.

 

[rabbituk]

I went round to the mechanic over the weekend regarding another problem with my car, however he still happened to have the old oil feed pipe. So I took it home and have taken a couple of pictures with a USB microscope. The fracture underneath the collar is not really visible with the naked eye but under the microscope it is quite clear. Before this I was wondering if it have become deformed. The pictures might be interesting to somebody who gets this symptom. Incidentally the new pipe is leaking a little but has just been nipped up for now. I've covered 4k miles since the new pipe went on and still intending to change at the 5k mile mark.

 

[rabbituk]

Car has now covered 207,500 miles and again another cracked turbo feed pipe. I've been dropping the oil every 5k miles as mentioned. It seems to last for roughly 7-9 months and about 10k miles.
I've now gone away from the stock oil feed pipe and fitted a Darkside developments turbo oil feed pipe in the hope that it is more robust and won't crack.

Another thought, could excessive engine vibration cause this? Not that I think the engine is that bad but perhaps I just don't realise.

Here is the photo of the crack in pipe no 2...