Turbos

[Andrew1972]

I used to have similiar (outdated) thinking too.

However our 2005 Subaru Legacy wagon still has its original turbo(WRX engine) at 205,000 miles. We have used 4K oci since brand new with conventonal.

Also never any special idle down routines just turn key off.

 

[Virtus_Probi]

Many early turbos did not have intercoolers and also had designs that allowed the oil that cooled them to flow away right when the engine shut down, making coking a much bigger problem. With the addition of water cooling and better mechanical design of the cooling system in general, the need to let your turbo cool with the engine idling before shutdown is basically gone...however, I still do it sometimes, even though I feel silly sitting there.

 

[supercity]

Just like engines, there are good and bad turbos. Longevity has more to do with how they are treated. The original 21 year old Garrett T3 on my car is still spinning along fine.

 

[TiredTrucker]

Guess is depends on how far back. I took a 1995 Cummins N-14 with a Holset turbo (non water cooled) to 1.4 million miles and it was still doing fine. The Borg Warner 171702 turbo on my 2000 factory remanned Detroit 60 has 610,000 miles on it and doing great. Again, just oil, not water cooled. From the commercial diesel side of things, the newer turbos actually have higher failure rates than previous versions, mostly because they are more complicated now with variable geometry design and actuators that move that around in the turbo. Even more reason that many should use turbo blankets on the exhaust side to keep heat from destroying the external actuator modules. I use turbo blankets on all my turbos and I have not ever had a turbo failure on those that I have. One time I didn't use a turbo blanket, on a 2005 Cummins ISX with water cooled Holset VG turbo, and the actuator failed twice and the turbo died long before it should have. After starting to use turbo blanket on it, failures ceased.

 

[sprite1741]

Originally Posted By: supercity
Just like engines, there are good and bad turbos. Longevity has more to do with how they are treated. The original 21 year old Garrett T3 on my car is still spinning along fine.


My T03 is 30 years old and still going. 100% cheap conventional oil.

 

[Jarlaxle]

I recall the first water cooled turbos were the Chrysler 2.2s. I saw many over 150K, and a few well over 200K on original turbos. The Ford 2.3 was also pretty tough.

 

[CT8]

I had to come back . The more parts there are the more parts there are to fail. If you have a vehicle with out a turbo the turbo or engine will never fail because of the turbo or the extra turbo parts. You pay your money and you take your chances. Supercharged /turbo engines are fun.

 

[ls1mike]

Originally Posted By: Jarlaxle
I recall the first water cooled turbos were the Chrysler 2.2s. I saw many over 150K, and a few well over 200K on original turbos. The Ford 2.3 was also pretty tough.

This. I had an 87 Shelby Lancer with the original intercooled Garrett turbo at 230,000.
The GLH went 200,000ish.
The Garrett Turbo in the earlier cars and intercooled cars was better than Mitsubishi that was used in the 1988 and up Turbo I or non intercooled cars.

 

[DriveHard]

I have had three vehicles with turbo's. Two of them were past 250K miles and still going strong. The other past 150K. The two high mileage were VW/Audi (one diesel and one gas), the lower mileage example was a mid 80's dodge.

 

[aquariuscsm]

I knew a guy who had a 300ZX twin turbo with around 350,000 miles on it,original turbos,and still ran like a dream.

 

[Jetronic]

I had 1 turbo failure following cracking my oil pan. Turbos don't like running low on oil, and that was an oil cooled turbo so running shortly without lubrication and cooling.

 

[sleddriver]

I would and I have bought two:

1. 1983 SAAB 900T 5-dr. 5-speed. Bought new. Drove 14yrs. OEM oil-cooled/lubed TC finally gave up at 205,000 mi. Replaced with rebuilt and drove the car until I sold it with 256,000mi.

2. 1998 Volvo V70/T5. Original owner. Current mileage: bit over 215,000mi. Water cooled OEM original TC.

No worries!

 

[sciphi]

Would I buy a new one? Yep, I did 5 years ago. Synthetic oil changed on time and idling it before shutdown have probably helped.

 

[MCompact]

I've had four-

1985 Thunderbird Turbo Coupe
1991 740 Turbo
2007 Mazdaspeed 3
2014 M235i

No issues- and I will likely buy another sooner or later.

 

[supton]

I had one; it went about 250kmiles before it snapped a shaft. The shaft was still free to spin, it just broke in half (forget which side went free). Guess it was a material defect.

Wouldn't mind another, the broad flat torque curve makes driving a stick more enjoyable. Less shifting.

 

[pjhalifax]

Sure, I'd buy one. Mine all have turbos so I've gone all-in at this point.

The 2000 9-3 has 145K on it and still boosts nicely. (Of course now it'll probably explode.)

 

[Virtus_Probi]

Originally Posted By: GMBoy
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.


I was looking to buy a new car around 1988 and made a rash decision to buy a GN...and then a car nut in the office told me they were out of production. I was in Dallas and he said he knew of a dealer in Oklahoma that was sitting on a few, but I figured I would have to pay a premium besides hauling all the way up there to check them out...so, I swung almost completely the other way and bought a CRX!
Probably good in the long run, I'd guess that I probably would have killed myself in a GN as a 22 year old with no experience driving powerful RWD vehicles. Especially given that I moved back up to the snow belt shortly thereafter...the thing that was really stupid was that my insurance was dramatically higher with the Honda than it would have been with the GN because it was a "two seater sports car" as opposed to a four seat coupe. ?????

 

[Tomioka]

I'd buy an F-150 EcoBoost just for the sake of straight piping it (after the cat.)

 

[artificialist]

Originally Posted By: TiredTrucker
Guess is depends on how far back. I took a 1995 Cummins N-14 with a Holset turbo (non water cooled) to 1.4 million miles and it was still doing fine. The Borg Warner 171702 turbo on my 2000 factory remanned Detroit 60 has 610,000 miles on it and doing great. Again, just oil, not water cooled. From the commercial diesel side of things, the newer turbos actually have higher failure rates than previous versions, mostly because they are more complicated now with variable geometry design and actuators that move that around in the turbo. Even more reason that many should use turbo blankets on the exhaust side to keep heat from destroying the external actuator modules. I use turbo blankets on all my turbos and I have not ever had a turbo failure on those that I have. One time I didn't use a turbo blanket, on a 2005 Cummins ISX with water cooled Holset VG turbo, and the actuator failed twice and the turbo died long before it should have. After starting to use turbo blanket on it, failures ceased.

There is another reason newer turbos aren't lasting as long as they used to. When a DPF engine goes into regen mode, it has to raise the exhaust temperature, and that can be harsh on the turbo.

One reason turbos lasted longer on diesels than on gasoline engines was because the exhaust temperature was lower.

Anyway, there was a discussion about cars that gave turbos a bad name. The first one I can think of is the Mazda RX-7. NA Mazda RX-7 models would last, but turbo models didn't last.

 

[Jetronic]

The exhaust temperature only gets really hot during a regen in the catalyst though. That's where the raw fuel burns to heat up the DPF.

But I can get up to the maximum allowed pre-turbo EGT just by driving at top speed for a few seconds, without a Regen taking place. I say the EGT got higher because the power output for the displacement got higher in modern cars.