Suspected 2012 Golf TDI Turbo Failure

Hello everyone, I need a hand diagnosing an issue that just happened to my 2012 Golf TDI. I am overseas right now and my girlfriend who drives the car just sent me a video of the car making a terrible whining noise that started when she got off the freeway. I had her see if the noise was present in neutral and it is. I am fairly convinced the turbo gave up the ghost for some reason but I wanted to see what you guys think. I just had the emissions "fix" performed a few thousand miles ago so I am not sure if this was caused by that or is just a coincidence. Anyways here are the two videos. I would love to hear any theories. Thanks!
While driving: https://youtu.be/aNA-O0EaEwg
While in neutral: https://youtu.be/scosmd0zPsc

Update: Called VW dealership and they had a tow truck to my house in a few hours to pick the car up. They said based on the description and video it is almost certain that the turbo has failed. Rather concerningly there was another TDI (2009 Jetta) pulling into the dealership on a flatbed at the same time my my car arrived. The owner of that vehicle asked if ours had the "fix" done to it and he said he reluctantly had it done a few thousand miles ago and his turbo failed under almost identical circumstances as ours. I'm not sure how much testing VW did to verify the emissions "fix" wouldn't significantly reduce the life of these components but so far I am not convinced they did enough... With the anecdotal evidence I have so far, it seems that your turbo may fail ~5,000 miles after the fix like both of ours did. I don't know if my turbo with only 77,000 miles on it was already on its way out (unlikely due to to its easy life) and would have failed anyway or if the ECU reprogramming killed it due to high temps or something.

Be prapared to spend thousands at delaership. I'd better get it to one of the trusted TDI mechanics for independent diagnosis and repair.

They said it would all be covered under the warranty. I had the HPFP replaced by that dealership about 10,000 miles ago with the HPFP warranty (~$4,000 repair without warranty) and it was a really painless process and I am expecting the same thing with the turbo.

I wouldn't drive it with a failed turbo. I saw it happen to a piece of logging equipment that pieces from the turbo took out the engine but admit I don't know if that would be a possibility with ours.

What you say makes me wonder if I want to have the fix done. Mine has about 93000 miles on it. The only problem so far, besides dealer screw ups, has been an oil leak at the turbo return line banjo fitting that happened right after a trip to Vegas and having to start the car at -25 C. Two new O-rings will apparently fix that.

Two data points don't make a trend. There's no data I've seen that indicates the fix would shorten turbo life. Truth is, current emissions hardware on all diesels is pretty hard on turbos, subjecting them to higher temps and more temperature fluctuations than older cars. So they probably won't last as long. Also, many of these cars have been neglected pre-fix. You have no idea of how the car your wife saw being towed in was maintained or driven.

IndigoBlueWagon said:

Two data points don't make a trend. There's no data I've seen that indicates the fix would shorten turbo life. Truth is, current emissions hardware on all diesels is pretty hard on turbos, subjecting them to higher temps and more temperature fluctuations than older cars. So they probably won't last as long. Also, many of these cars have been neglected pre-fix. You have no idea of how the car your wife saw being towed in was maintained or driven.

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You are very correct that no trend can be determined from two points. I think we will have to see if more of these start popping up in the future as more miles are accumulated. I don't know about that Jetta but my car has had all of its services performed at that dealership its entire life. Hopefully she can get the service writer to divulge how many cars they have had to replace the turbos on recently when she goes to pick it up.

tdi_spec said:

Hopefully she can get the service writer to divulge how many cars they have had to replace the turbos on recently when she goes to pick it up.

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Drawing conclusions from that data won't help either. One dealer service writer's recollections aren't really useful. VW has been fixing these cars for months. If they were causing a significant number of premature turbo failures we'd know by now.

IndigoBlueWagon said:

Drawing conclusions from that data won't help either. One dealer service writer's recollections aren't really useful. VW has been fixing these cars for months. If they were causing a significant number of premature turbo failures we'd know by now.

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I agree. I expect we'll be hearing all sorts of problems- from dead batteries, to clogged fuel filters erroneously attributed to the fix. I'll call it "fixers remorse" .

tdi_spec said:

They said it would all be covered under the warranty. I had the HPFP replaced by that dealership about 10,000 miles ago with the HPFP warranty (~$4,000 repair without warranty) and it was a really painless process and I am expecting the same thing with the turbo.

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Covered under the extended warranty that comes with the fix? How did that go - did they cover the turbo repair under the extended "fix" warranty? I'm debating the fix or "not." Also debating whether to sell back and buy one that's been "fixed."

Here is a picture of mine at just under 85K. Always meticulously maintained and never driven really hard. My turbo sounded very much like yours in the video. Basically the shaft went on mine, which sent both wheels bouncing around inside the housing at I would imagine very high speeds shredding them up pretty good. It's hard to tell in the pic but the wheel is actually wedged in the housing opening.

https://photos.google.com/photo/AF1QipM_-9AYKqVz-igZZw8Flb08AIyFPjM8KpG9TMxg?.jpg

That's also why you should not drive on a blown turbo. See all that missing metal, guess where it all went. I ended up replacing my intercooler as well as there was so much metal in it. The mechanic cleaned it repeatedly and there was still metal coming out and I had a 3800 mile drive from Anchorage to San Diego in November so I wasn't taking any chances. I have heard of people replacing their turbo only to have it go again shortly after because they didn't get all of the metal out of the system from the first time.

A HPFP failure and a turbo failure within 10K of each other. That is a bummer. Good thing it is under warranty.
I've heard too many of those sad tales and that's why I ultimately decided to sell mine back to VW. I was out of warranty but at least I got the $4500 back from the turbo replacement via the restitution payment. Anyway, when they pull your turbo likely it will look like the one in the pic above.