Catastrophic VNT 17 failure

Pulled a WOT on the interstate on ramp Monday. Heard a pop and then a huge white smoke cloud followed by limp mode. Immediately pulled over and shut it down and had it towed home.
No coolant loss head gasket appears to be fine
Approximately 1.5qts low on oil.
Lower intercooler full of oil.
Verified VNT rod adjustment. ~3 inHg of vacuum when rod started to move. 18 inHg at the stop.
Basically confirmed time to pull the turbo.
Pulled the turbo today and found the turbine shaft broken. Exhaust turbine was missing. Apparently my 2.5" straight exhaust ate it and puked it out the exhaust pipe.
Only had maybe 9,000 miles on the new turbo when it grenaded.
List of mods on my 02 Golf 5spd.. VNT17 RIP 9-5-16, PP764's, 3bar, PD150 intake w/race pipe, straight 2.5" exhaust, Kerma tuned, NSP egt and boost gauges, etc.
Plan on thoroughly cleaning the IC and associated pipes. Anything else I should look at? Plan on monitoring Group 11 when I'm back up and running again. Must have over boosted when the turbo went? Not really sure what to make out of why it happened. Anyone else have a similar experience?

Wow this is exactly what happened to my Vnt 17 and at roughly the same mileage to . I was Merging onto the freeway in 3rd did a quick WOT and she blew up. I brought it from a reputable dealer on Tdi Club and my warranty was not honored. Hopefully you have better luck than I did man.


Bajan

Yeah no warranty. Turbo was 2 years old. Bought from a reputable source on tdiclub as well. Only getting 9k miles out of it sucks. My Jetta has a 17/22 and has been flawless with 80k on it. If I had a do over I would have went with a 17/22.

How much boost was it pushing?

Didn't see my boost gauge when the turbo grenaded but had hit 28-30psi before on a WOT.

HelenaTDI said:

Yeah no warranty. Turbo was 2 years old. Bought from a reputable source on tdiclub as well. Only getting 9k miles out of it sucks. My Jetta has a 17/22 and has been flawless with 80k on it. If I had a do over I would have went with a 17/22.

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Well after the 17 Grenade I went with a 1756 with rc asv5 tune


Bajan

Same exact results here on a 5k mile vnt 17 earlier in the year. Warranty denied due to overspeeding the turbo, found a boost leak at an aftermarket map sensor that had failed.

They can come from almost anywhere and vendors might or might not be any the wiser of their source.
https://www.alibaba.com/showroom/gt1749v-turbo-garrett-721021--0001.html

Yareka said:

Same exact results here on a 5k mile vnt 17 earlier in the year. Warranty denied due to overspeeding the turbo, found a boost leak at an aftermarket map sensor that had failed.

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I'm starting to wonder if weather or not we got a defective batch. The vnt 17 is usually regarded as very durable turbo.

I don't mean to point any fingers at whomever you guys got your turbos that failed, but in the case of the OP, in his picture, the Garrett/Honeywell plate is glued overtop of whatever is normally laser-etched to the compressor housing at the factory...

Edit: It's fair enough that perfectly legitimate, genuine Garrett turbo would have a plate as was shown:
https://garrett.honeywell.com/products/turbo-identification/

Obviously, there are tons of possible contributing factors to the failures - an internet forum is not the place to disseminate that; you and your vendor or Garrett is that venue.

Nice so what did I get then a Chinese knock off 17?

Read my edit.

After I clean my entire IC and all the intake pipes what else should I look at before installing my next new turbo? Regarding the exhaust side turbine that is missing in my exhaust somewhere should I worry about it? Think it may have been blown out the exhaust since its straight 2.5" all the way back.
Other then being a ~1.5qt low I don't believe I did any engine damage. It was shut down immediately after it happened.

massive overspeed !! 28-30 psi is way to much
max boost vnt 17 around 24 psi 1.7 bar a gt1749vb

mk1-83 said:

massive overspeed !! 28-30 psi is way to much
max boost vnt 17 around 24 psi 1.7 bar a gt1749vb

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Bingo! excessive spiking and creeping will lead to blown turbos.

HelenaTDI said:

Didn't see my boost gauge when the turbo grenaded but had hit 28-30psi before on a WOT.

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holy crap! ...no wonder that little guy went to snail heaven early !

mk1-83 said:

massive overspeed !! 28-30 psi is way to much
max boost int 17 around 24 psi 1.7 bar a gt1749vb

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Compressor STALL kills turbines!

Pushing too much boost pressure with too low of a volume moving thru it, and its gonna blow!

It threw a blade, then dug in and sheared the shaft... In that exact order.

This is exactly what that VNT-17 did...

Yep the next one getting installed will be set to the conservative side.
Glad I wasn't a passenger in that AA flight. lol.


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Drivbiwire said:

Compressor STALL kills turbines!
Pushing too much boost pressure with too low of a volume moving thru it, and its gonna blow!
It threw a blade, then dug in and sheared the shaft... In that exact order.
This is exactly what that VNT-17 did...

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That photos is a fake, Pete. You should know better than that.
http://www.airliners.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=879061

Every single aviation incident will be thoroughly documented by the FAA and this one above doesn't pass the test. Stall by itself wouldn't necessarily cause a jet engine explosion and moreover the engines are engineered such that compressor stall is an exceedingly rare phenomenon over any anticipated operation with large safety margins.

Turbochargers and jet engines are both turbomachinery as much as a human being has in common with a sloth in that both are mammals.

DBW's typical FUD again.

For the record, his tune has the factory PD130/150/160 boost limit of 2620 mbar and it's the same basic tune that hundreds of other kerma tuned VNT17 cars have with no issues.

Shortly after he got his tune in 2014 he contacted me about higher than expected boost. I sent troubleshooting info and gave some tips and never heard anything further.

TDIMeister said:

That photos is a fake, Pete. You should know better than that.
http://www.airliners.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=879061
Every single aviation incident will be thoroughly documented by the FAA and this one above doesn't pass the test. Stall by itself wouldn't necessarily cause a jet engine explosion and moreover the engines are engineered such that compressor stall is an exceedingly rare phenomenon over any anticipated operation with large safety margins.
Turbochargers and jet engines are both turbomachinery as much as a human being has in common with a sloth in that both are mammals.
DBW's typical FUD again.

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so you're saying photoshop killed that turbine ?

KERMA said:

For the record, his tune has the factory PD130/150/160 boost limit of 2620 mbar and it's the same basic tune that hundreds of other kerma tuned VNT17 cars have with no issues.

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I totally agree with this ^^



Bajan

TDIMeister said:

That photos is a fake, Pete. You should know better than that.
http://www.airliners.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=879061
Every single aviation incident will be thoroughly documented by the FAA and this one above doesn't pass the test. Stall by itself wouldn't necessarily cause a jet engine explosion and moreover the engines are engineered such that compressor stall is an exceedingly rare phenomenon over any anticipated operation with large safety margins.
Turbochargers and jet engines are both turbomachinery as much as a human being has in common with a sloth in that both are mammals.
DBW's typical FUD again.

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Not as rare as you think...

FYI, any compressor stall on a GE turbine is a mandatory removal and replacement. They almost always throw a blade or a dozen if a stall occurs.

The engines use a bleed valve to exhaust excess volume to improve compressor stall margin.

In a TDI it'd be similar to an electronic blow-off valve that opens based on rpm and pressure variables to insure you don't exceed the maximum volume that can safely pass thru the motor.

And yeah, fake photos get the point across...

Here is a real one for you...



https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=MQWYhsYfMxE

wowzers!!! ^^ that thing must be running 7 hole "race" nozzles !!!

I thought this thread is about VNT 17s.....

TDIMeister I glad you pointed out the glued on Honeywell plate, I still have the 17 that was denied warranty claim and that's the first thing I'll check when I get home plus I'll post my findings.


Bajan

This is what is left of my compressor. I flushed out my IC with a gallon of acetone today. Cleaned all the intake piping as well. Air cleaner looked fine.
Do I trust using the IC or get a new one? I used compressed air to blow anything out afterwards.
Had a cup or so of oil pour out the IC. Where did the other 1qt or so of oil go? Tried running a magnet down my down pipe as far as I could go. Couldn't retrieve the exhaust turbine and shaft. Not sure if it blew out the tail pipe. I shouldn't have any interferences so maybe it's out.

red16vdub said:

TDIMeister I glad you pointed out the glued on Honeywell plate, I still have the 17 that was denied warranty claim and that's the first thing I'll check when I get home plus I'll post my findings.

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As I pointed out in my edit, a glued-on plate like shown in the first post is in itself not a smoking gun of anything insidious per se, according to Garrett's own webpage that shows how to identify its products. However, you certainly have a serial number on there, so I guess you could contact Garrett directly to trace its provenance...

Unless I'm mistaken (which I am often) 2620 bar less one atmosphere is 23.7 PSI, give or take. I've always understood that the safe boost limit for a VNT-17 is 22-24 PSI. Both turbos mentioned here were running more than that.

IndigoBlueWagon said:

Unless I'm mistaken (which I am often) 2620 bar less one atmosphere is 23.7 PSI, give or take. I've always understood that the safe boost limit for a VNT-17 is 22-24 PSI. Both turbos mentioned here were running more than that.

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this ^^