Turbo died finally? Vid inside. Please help

Ok I can tell my turbo was weak. Had a thread the other day.

I’m 900 miles into my 1100 mile trip home and got this sound. What happened and can I limp it home at 40mph for 250 miles?

https://youtu.be/XR66BlSscgE

Am I gonna melt something with no air? I’m not blowing smoke

Or is my turbo going to blow up and shoot chunks into the motorb

I’ve got half power and can keep moving and do hills. But the sound is rough. It’s coming from my upper egr area it sounds like

https://youtu.be/SRkChkKjdSI


Still limping her home. But for how long

Cab kinda smells like exhaust. Could it be my home made egr plate with thin metal failed?

Can't tell much from your video. It looks like your committed to trying to make it home, good luck.

Yes I am. It’s still got half decent power and I can get it to 60 mph. Defiantly has low boost and a horrible sound coming from there.

With a shaft being like play doh, you aren’t getting much sealing for the oil. I’d be concerned with too much loss of oil. But without a lot of smoke and burning oil coming out of the exhaust, you won’t be able to tell while driving. Until a wheel goes out the exhaust or you runaway :/ but enough with the chicken little, you’re committed ! Go for it!


Good luck.

I thought that too. I’ll check the oil level. Scared to shut it off though. Thanks! Engine temp is fine. Sure has low power. I’ve done like 200km so far like this. It’s all or nothing!! I got a jug of t6 with me. I fueled up and it didn’t spit any thing from exhaust on the ground. I looked and smelled the fumes. Seemed normal. Inter college piping by passenger wheel is connected and not leaking or wet



Edit. She was low. Not on dipstick. Took two quarts or so. Thank you for mentioning that

Made it home!!! Boy that was a hard 300 miles and 6 hours on my mind and motor. The car stinks!! I can definitely tell it’s burning oil.

I stopped twice for 5 mins and shut it off and when I took off it blew a bunch of black smoke at the start. But cleaned up and didn’t smoke while down the highway.

Gonna have it towed to the local tdi guy later today and he’s gonna look at it tomorrow morning! I’ll keep y’all updated. Thanks for the advice!

so ive been researching turbos. stock is the VNT-15? aka the kp39?


an upgrade would be the VNT-17? how do I tell if im getting a chinese knock off? is buying a used one a bad idea?


not really too sure what route to take on a mild, daily driver with fuel economy as a priority, as well as keeping costs down. I dont want anything extreme or fancy or overkill. just the basics, nice and plain and cheap and simple. im sick of having aftermarket frankenstein everything thats always failing! I dont want to have to change EGR pipe, clock the turbo, replace to braided oil lines, etc etc.... is rebuilding mine an option or is that just a scabby repair thall fail again in 100,000km? point me in the right direction PLEASE!!


is this chinese? https://www.ebay.com/itm/NEW-1-9L-V...03/132785297772?hash=item1eea9ed96c:rk:1:pf:0






how about a rebuilt/overhauled/re manufactured one? https://www.ebay.com/itm/VW-GARRETT...7e9afb8:g:En4AAOSwT2Bb8E-j:rk:3:pf:0#viTabs_0




Borg Warner is the OEM brand?

I would just buy a stock turbo and replace that. I would only buy from one of the vendors here as I would want to insure it is an oem VW turbo only. You are going to pay a lot of money to install this thing and you want it to work first time and continue for a long time. Any repair the requires this kind of investment I stay with VW oem parts only and a known experienced mechanic.

fouillard13 said:

so ive been researching turbos. stock is the VNT-15? aka the kp39?


an upgrade would be the VNT-17? how do I tell if im getting a chinese knock off? is buying a used one a bad idea?


not really too sure what route to take on a mild, daily driver with fuel economy as a priority, as well as keeping costs down. I dont want anything extreme or fancy or overkill. just the basics, nice and plain and cheap and simple. im sick of having aftermarket frankenstein everything thats always failing! I dont want to have to change EGR pipe, clock the turbo, replace to braided oil lines, etc etc.... is rebuilding mine an option or is that just a scabby repair thall fail again in 100,000km? point me in the right direction PLEASE!!


is this chinese? https://www.ebay.com/itm/NEW-1-9L-V...03/132785297772?hash=item1eea9ed96c:rk:1:pf:0






how about a rebuilt/overhauled/re manufactured one? https://www.ebay.com/itm/VW-GARRETT...7e9afb8:g:En4AAOSwT2Bb8E-j:rk:3:pf:0#viTabs_0




Borg Warner is the OEM brand?

Click to expand...

You have a 2004? Both of those are for up to 2003.

good catch/point. both of you guys, thank you. my bad. way too many codes and abbreviations going on here for me. BEW, ALH, vnt15, vnt17, kp39


so... ALH is 99-03 and is vnt15
BEW is 04-06 and is upgraded/bigger/better garrett vnt17 and the smaller/stock/cheaper/weaker Borg warner kp39?



how many hours labor is he going to ding me for? a brand new OEM would definitely be nice, but its not cheap!!! kind of strapped for cash ATM so im stuck between a rock and a hard place... the turbo broke at the of a 21 day dirtbiking vacation, of which I had 6 catastrophic $300 failures on the bike!! not to mention hotels, food, fuel, etc.... been a rough month. definitely did not need my turbo grenading on the way home. first world problems I guess.




a reman is a horrible idea? https://www.ebay.com/itm/VW-Jetta-G...KP39-Genuine-Turbo-Turbocharger-/252776164485


edit regarding reman... found this: "are you yourself rebuilding and modifying the existing turbo? I wouldn't recommend that, just buy a new one. Rebuilt turbos on these cars have a VERY checkered reputation. I had a dealer reman KP39 that lasted 13K miles....with a 12K warranty. Bastards..."


should I be ordering a boost gauge too?


is my intercooler going to need to be replaced? or just cleaned? will it have metal chunks in it? sorry for all the dumb questions.




this helped me a ton... makes sense.

"
Why are there two replacement turbos available? When VW released the BEW cars in 2004, they came stock with a KP39 turbo, whereas previous TDI engines came with a Garrett VNT15. However, KP39s weren’t released to the aftermarket yet (they eventually were released in 2011), and Garrett saw an opportunity to adapt the VNT-17, which was used on PD 130 and PD 150 cars in Europe, to these North American cars and exploit the gap in the market. They did so by lowering the EGR pipes and sourcing actuators in North America.


The main difference between the two turbos is their size and how much fuel they can provide to the engine. The VNT-17 is larger, and can thus compress more air. It has a 49 millimeter compressor wheel, which is considerably larger than the wheel on the KP39. Fully modified TDIs with a VNT-17 can dyno at around 180+ HP/350+ft/lbs of torque, while with a perfect tune a KP39 would be doing extremely well if it dynoed at around 150 HP/240 ft/lbs.In order to take full advantage of the VNT17’s power, however, you might have to spend some serious coin.
Another point to consider about the VNT-17 is that, because it’s larger, there’s more lag time between acceleration and boost. Comparatively, the KP39 is more responsive.Tuning your car can eliminate this lag, plus improve performance.


While the KP39 might be easier on your wallet and have good response, it can struggle and fail at high altitudes. The turbo needs to work harder to compress the thin air, and therefore produces less power or might overspeed and fail. The VNT-17, because it’s bigger, has less trouble.


A second downside to the KP39 is that replacement actuators are unavailable. If your actuator breaks, you need a whole new turbo. Replacement actuators are available for the VNT-17.


In summary, if you’re running a stock TDI, consider the KP39 your best option. However, if your car is modified to take advantage of a larger turbo, or you live in a high altitude area, the VNT-17 is your best bet."

A common problem with these cars is to have the boost hose come loose from the intake manifold. There’s a product called the “doggie collar” to hold it on. It’s a common enough problem that someone went through the trouble of making a part to fix it.

When mine popped off the car ran like crap and sounded kind of like your video. Basically they will all do it eventually. It’s a bad design.

Other boost pipe connections can also come loose, such as the one from the turbo to the intercooler, but the one at the intake manifold is the most common.

So make sure it isn’t just a loose connection before you replace the turbo.

is that up top and easy to find/get at? what about the reeking smell of burnt oil, and the fact that something rotating sounds like its very very hurting?

fouillard13 said:

is that up top and easy to find/get at? what about the reeking smell of burnt oil, and the fact that something rotating sounds like its very very hurting?

Click to expand...

Yes, the connection to the intake is obvious. Also, it's right near the EGR valve, which you said is where it sounds like the noise is coming from.

This link shows a picture of the doggie collar installed, so you can see which hose it goes on.

https://www.kermatdi.com/i-123-pumpe-duse-intake-hose-manifold-connection-fix-bew-bhw-brm.html

ah, yeah I know that connection. it has slowly been leaking around there for the last year or so. I did an EGR delete about 2 years ago and was told to unplug that electrical plug there, so I did and it ran great for years. I dont think its noticably disconnected, but I dont think its a perfect seal. Ill go grab a pic.


I took a peek at my lower intercooler tube too, been having problems with that recently, BUT, I got it replaced with a new one and it seems to be fine lately since the new one was installed.



thanks for that.

Turbo setup alone is about $1k dollars US. Other misc parts and labor will probably double that to $2k total cost. But you said you told the mechanic to check everything out and make it good which will drive the cost even higher. TB would be another $700 to $1k and probably another $1k in other needed things. This is just under the hood. Brakes and other things such as suspension will raise the cost even higher. You have to decide how far to go, how much you are willing/capable/comfortable spending and how long you plan to keep it. Doing all of these things means you plan to keep it for a long time (multiple years) to get your monies worth. For most people any major repair expenditure like the turbo means sell and get something else.

youre scaring me lol!! I do like this car and I do plan on keeping it for a very long time, but for the next month or so I gotta unfortunately do just the bare minimum... "if it aint broke, dont fix it".... sorry ol girl. that can also turn into "pay some now, or even more later" real quick though!



so im probably gonna focus on just the turbo for now. I think we can all agree thats a major priority, then do EVERYTHING else in the spring when im back working. the other stuff can wait a few weeks, itll still run and run just fine, but this turbo is rough. I think I can tackle brakes and suspension on my own, its the motor stuff im not confident with. ive already done brakes when I first got the car... easy and I do enjoy the easier stuff like that, its very rewarding and I love wrenching.



timing belt and cam at the same time are next on the "to do" list thats for sure. turbo first though.


I would definitely like to repair everything for a few grand and get another 300,000 out of her. but not this weekend.

So your boost hose didn't blow off. Oh well, it was worth a look. All that oil in there could be from a bad turbo.

The oil could also be from the crankcase ventilation. I've had my car since new, and it always had quite a bit of oil up in there, even when it was just a few months old.

If the turbo is the only problem, then that's good news because it's actually pretty easy to replace. (Easy for someone who has done it before and has the tools... Like I'd do these all day long for the money they charge typically! I'd make a fortune. Line 'em up!)

Go to frans for a less expensive turbo. Seems some people are happy with his rebuilds. Research for yourself though.
http://forums.tdiclub.com/showthread.php?t=434593


You sir got lucky not getting into a runaway. Don’t f it up with a bad turbo choice

how many hours is a turbo swap? im pretty sure hes done them before...but what does "the book" say?


im also glad I didnt have a runaway. with my luck im very surprised. when that does happen, whats the trick? I think I read a long time ago something about leaving it in gear and just slamming the brakes? turning the key off basically does nothing except turn the fuel pump off, which is pointless as the engines "fuel" in a runaway is the engine oil.... right? so you basically need to stop it from the bottom end via the transmission/clutch grabbing on the crank to stop it?

kooyajerms said:

Go to frans for a less expensive turbo. Seems some people are happy with his rebuilds. Research for yourself though.
http://forums.tdiclub.com/showthread.php?t=434593


You sir got lucky not getting into a runaway. Don’t f it up with a bad turbo choice

Click to expand...

Three years ago i had a dead turbo and a flat cam.
I didnt have the cash for a new turbo so i bought an used turbo from franz. Turbo came in clean and packaged like a new unit. It also had a shaft balance sheet. Almost no play.
60k miles later is still working fine.

In a pinch an original oem used turbo is better that china or obscure rebuilts...

Depends on the cost. The turbo itself is only a small part of the cost. Other parts and labor will will exceed the cost of the turbo and if they have to be repeated due to a bad turbo will just increase the cost two fold. Do it right once for these kind of high value repairs. Some do get lucky though. If you have no other choice then I would choose franz over other choices.

to further complicate things, I need it done soon to get to work. im in canada, I usually ship stuff to northern montana and go get it myself 2 days later.. with the car!!! so im really in a bind. shipping to canada takes 10 business days alone, unless I pay for priority shipping, in which case I may as well buy a new OEM turbo here from a dealership!!!


tow truck is on its way, will be here in half hour. I started the car this morning to move it and re position it and it blew out a TONN of grey/blue smoke from the exhaust and was coming from under the hood too.... kind of scary. it did clear up after about 15 seconds of running. I probably had it running for less than 60 seconds this morning.

also, to ALL canadians with AMA roadside assistance. ditch that asap. its a complete joke. Canadian Tire roadside assistance is amazing.


my AMA expired so I wanted to re sign up as a plus member and THEN have my car towed. well they wouldnt do it as the car technically died before I had a membership. so it would have to be something else that breaks down before they towed it. they also would not tow it from my house address since I told them thats where its broken down, before I had a membership. they also only give you three 160km tows AND its $130.


well Canadian Tires was $99. they give you five 250km tows, and unlimited tows to a Canadian Tire, as well as you only need to be a member for 24 hours before theyll tow you. couldnt have asked for more. off she goes! ill have an update for you guys tomorrow im sure.