Turbos

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Back when I was younger turbos didn`t hold up I`m told and were quite expensive to replace . I never owned a turbo car in my life so I`m just going by memory. I see turbos in cars are getting more and more used. I was wondering will they hold up for the life of the car now? Would you buy a car that has a turbo?
 
I don't know a whole lot about turbos, but I recall reading that the old school turbos were only oil cooled and many ran on conventional oil. Many of todays turbos are liquid cooled and the owners manual requires synthetic oil. The girlfriends 2014 Jetta is equipped with a 1.8T and the owners manual says to use VW 502.00 approved oil, hopefully it will last us a LONG time.
 
The old turbos weren't cooled and lubricated as well as they are nowadays.
Many old Volvo intercooled turbos have run far over 150k miles with no special maintenance.

I've seriously considered a new dd that's turbo and possibly diesel too, but know that will dramatically increase my budget. There's also a much higher chance of problems as the seals age due to high underhood temps and pressures on the engine.

So overall no, I don't think I'll bother with a Turbo vehicle in the foreseeable future. Gas prices are still reasonable to simply purchase a car with a larger displacement engine (usually 6 cylinders) that will be more reliable and easier to maintain as it ages.
 
From what I see now and what I see that is 20 years old, stock turbos last about 120 to 150,000 miles. Some Mooney pilots bought their planes with turbos, and see long life (im guessing about 2000 hours) if they use the throttle sparingly.
 
When i was car shopping i made sure my sales man knew no turbo's. Just another item to go bad on you. I've seen some newer escapes come in for an oil change at work and u can see oil leaking from the turbos.
 
When were you "younger?"

Volvos, Datsuns, Saabs, Porsches... Most didn't need rebuilds until will into the 100 range, and even then it was only a small percentage.

The cars that did need work were abused and well, that hasn't changed...
 
Would I buy one? Sure. Water cooler modern turbos are very long lived. Turbo engines allow for more power from a smaller displacement. So you get better fuel mileage for the same HP than you would from a NA engine. As an example of longevity, and my willingness to buy, here are the turbo cars I currently own:

The 2002 XC is on its original turbo at 212,000 miles.

The 2002 T5 is on its original turbo at 187,000 miles.

The 2005 S600 has both of the original turbos at 89,000 miles.

I know a guy who has over 400,000 miles on his Volvo XC. On the original turbo.

Good oil helps.
 
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Since most of the motoring public does not properly maintain or operate their cars and never open up the owners manual,I can see where the problem lies. I have 2 vehicles with turbos and in 1977 had a vehicle with a turbo.
 
I had an old Chrysler 2.2 turbo, that was a single turbo. Ran great til the motor blew. Twice. When I bought it, it already had a replacement engine. Then the rod bearings went and I had it replaced. Then the head gasket blew and that was the end of it. The oil speced for it at the time was just regular 5w30. I think it died around 150k. To be fair, I think the previous owner had put in an aftermarket engine computer which gave it more boost which is probably why the engines died. I test drove a few other cars afterwards and none of them were as fast as the one I had. It was fun while it lasted.

Turbos are more popular now because of CAFE. Mercedes actually got rid of their E350 model for 2017 and went to the E300 which is just a 2 liter turbo 4 cylinder. It went from a 302 hp V6 to a 241hp engine.
 
Originally Posted By: 79sunrunner
From what I see now and what I see that is 20 years old, stock turbos last about 120 to 150,000 miles. Some Mooney pilots bought their planes with turbos, and see long life (im guessing about 2000 hours) if they use the throttle sparingly.
What is the tbo on the engines?
 
Let's see, first off I won't own a car without a turbo - they're simply too much fun. I'll take a small displacement turbo engine car or truck over something with a bigger engine and cylinder shut down; both are gas saving implements, I just like turbos over multi displacement gimmicks. Two Mazdaspeed 3s, and 3 Ecoboost pickups and I haven't had one thing go wrong with any of them and my '11 FX4 will soon be hitting 100k. That's not really high mileage nowadays but at 100k it hasn't given up anything in the way of performance and is still quiet as a mouse.

According to Lubrizols' website the next round of oil specs will address direct injection turbo needs better than the GF5 specs now in effect, so maybe turbos using that oil for the life of the engine will last longer than the engine.
Fear not the turbo motor!
 
Originally Posted By: Wolf359
I had an old Chrysler 2.2 turbo, that was a single turbo. Ran great til the motor blew. Twice. When I bought it, it already had a replacement engine. Then the rod bearings went and I had it replaced. Then the head gasket blew and that was the end of it. The oil speced for it at the time was just regular 5w30. I think it died around 150k. To be fair, I think the previous owner had put in an aftermarket engine computer which gave it more boost which is probably why the engines died. I test drove a few other cars afterwards and none of them were as fast as the one I had. It was fun while it lasted.

Turbos are more popular now because of CAFE. Mercedes actually got rid of their E350 model for 2017 and went to the E300 which is just a 2 liter turbo 4 cylinder. It went from a 302 hp V6 to a 241hp engine.
Everything is CAFE !
 
The main problem with turbo longevity "back in the day", was the oil. The turbo would literally cook the oil left in the bearings after engine shutdown. This resulted in COKE deposits, which would cause the eventual failure of the turbo. Modern materials, improved machining practices, computer controlled shutdown sequences, liquid cooling and of course vastly improved oils have all greatly improved on the reliability of the modern turbo.
 
I have no issue buying a NEW car that is turbocharged. Properly maintained I have zero concern about their reliability.
 
Originally Posted By: Lolvoguy
The old turbos weren't cooled and lubricated as well as they are nowadays.
Many old Volvo intercooled turbos have run far over 150k miles with no special maintenance.

I had an '86 Volvo 740 Turbo that I bought new. It had an oil cooled Turbo that was still fine after 18 1/2 years and 285,000 km, and that was on dino oil. I did change the oil a lot.

In those days turbo lag was a problem but once underway that engine was magnificent (for '86 anyway). With water cooling and modern synthetic oils I don't think turbos are anything to fear.
 
Still hsve the original turbo on my 87 Buick Grand National. This is an oil cooled only turbo. I always idle it a brief moment before shutting it down and run Mobil 1 synthetic oil since new. This and that it's got just 64k miles on the clock may explain why it's still good. I know others who ran them hard, never cooled them off and ran conventional oil that burned and coked the turbos to an early death. Conventional oils back then were not as good as they are today.
 
Some older turbo chargers did last, as they were made with better bearings than most more modern ones.

About 10% of all failures relate to installation faults, 40% to air filter debris and the other 50% to lubrication issues.

On the lube side of things, booting a cold engine and sudden hot shutdowns are top of the list, although sludge and varnish deposits are a close second.
 
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I've owned several Turbocharged vehicles, and worked on and built many more. A well made modern Turbo is generally very reliable.

Beware of some of the cheap, very low quality [censored] Turbo's coming mainly out of China. They are cheap for a reason.
 
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