05 Passat Possible Blown Turbo?

Ok guys, i know my profile says that i joined some time ago, but i am new to the tdi club. I registered years ago when i first started looking for a tdi, found a few but the deal never came thru. I just purchased a 2005 Passat GLS back in February with 227k when i bought it and have 233k on it now.


Everything has been fine for the most part, I have a stack of documents from the previous owners dating all the way back to the window sticker and brochures when new. Car started in Michigan before making way to Texas and now south La. The major things done and when, timing belt done at 100k and 227k, trans rebuild at 150k, cam replacement at 185k, and oil pump replaced at 227k. I have driven it without any ill effect for about 5000 miles and was planning my first oil change in it this weekend, but now i have other plans.


About two weeks ago i noticed some smoking on start up, not for long, but present. Then a few days later it would smoke a lil heavier on startup and continue for a few miles until warm and i could no longer detect it. However when coming to a stop and the window down i could detect a burnt oil smell. Ive had some beaters in my days, i know what oil leaks and hot surfaces smell like, hahaha. Anyway, i had decided that when i did my oil change i would investigate where the oil leak was coming from. Now i think i know where that source was coming from....


This morning on my commute to work i was cruising on the interstate at about 75mph. I had another car come up behind me and when i glanced in the review mirror i saw a lot of smoke. I pushed on accelerator to get around traffic to move over and nothing. No power to accelerate. Then the smoke got heavier and i could feel the car slowing down. I got over on the shoulder and this thing looks like a fog machine doing down road. I coasted/drove about a mile or so until i could get to an appropriate spot to pull off the interstate without being close to speeding traffic. Each time i tried to speed up, there was zero power and the car would not react to the throttle other than smoke. When slowing enough for the trans to downshift there was a big bellow of smoke. When coming to a stop the engine is purring like a kitchen but belching smoke out the back. There are no CEL or any other dash lights on. I position the car where it would be easy to load a truck/trailer. I kill it. Then restart with engine running smooth but smoke belching out back. I then kill the engine.


I make a few phones calls and await responses. After a while i pop the hood and check the oil level, it was registering on the stick, but just barely. No where near the low and high marks, but at least marking on the stick about a 1/4". There was smoke from the passenger side of engine bay where i think i could see the turbo thru all the plastic covers. I got in touch with my rescue crew and had them pick up some oil while in route. Upon arrival, i then filled the engine with oil again. I cranked the engine, it runs smooth and quiet. No knocking, screaching, pinging, or abnormal noises. But of course it looks like a volcano plume coming our the tail pipe. I then drove the car up and onto the trailer. Brought it home. I then cranked and backed the car off of the trailer and parked it at my house. All this time there were no abnormal noises and as yet no CEL of any kind has come on.


My thoughts, i suspect that i must have lost the oil seal on the turbo bearing gradually over the past two weeks and then it finally let go and dumped all the oil thru the exhaust. I checked oil level a day or two before i noticed the smoking and it was good.



Does this sound plausible? How difficult is it to reach/work on the turbo? Is the turbo rebuild-able? I rebuilt my turbo on my F250 myself a few years ago so i know the basics and the depth of work. If rebuild-able, is there a kit available somewhere? Is there a tutorial anywhere on the net to walk thru the steps? With pictures? Youtube video? If not rebuild-able, what does a new turbo cost? After market better? Who what where??? Any information that anyone can provide is greatly appreciated. The car is in really nice condition and gets 35-38 mpg and i would like to get it going again.



I would attach pics of the car, but the system wont let me. Guess i dont have enough posts yet. Thanks in advance for any help.

Have you popped off the turbo inlet to peek down at the fins? I had to use my phone to take a video, examine it for chips and feel for play.

The power stroke crowd is the only crowd I've seen that rebuilds a turbo without balancing. Seem to have great success with it. Every other turbo crowd ive seen is either balance or brace for projectiles.

Blaast turbo out of canada used to have killer prices for turbo rebuilds. No idea who else does them.

Confirm it actually is the turbocharger, take the inlet tube off of it and feel inside.

If it is, just replace it with a new one. They are made by Garrett, and usually are not failure prone.

This exact same scenario just happened to me a month or so back.

In my case the impeller shattered and blew copious smoke at anyone aft.

pull the air filter housing, as above, pull the inlet hose and check the impeller for play (or presence )

replacing the turbo is not "that" bad, just be ready to fight with some old rusty fasteners, and you might want to have a oil supply line ready along with the turbo as the oil inlet nut at the turbo cartridge tends to seize and wreck the line.

Make sure you fish out any debris, and drain/vacuum any oil out of the intercooler.

I got more oil out of my intercooler than I drained from the oil pan when mine went.

Thanks for the advice. So its preferable to replace instead of rebuild? What model garret is for these cars? Approx. pricing? I havent done anything to it yet, plan to get started on that this weekend. Ill update and ask more questions as it progresses. Ive been looking for a Hanes/Chiltons type manual for these type repairs and havent had much luck. Can find one for a gas engine but not diesel. Do they make one for these models?

The manual is called a Bentley. Check out the following websites for turbo pricing.

Idparts.com, metalmanparts.com, cascadegerman.com, fixmyvw.com or I think they my be under tunemyeuro.com now. Any of those folks can help you with a good quality turbo. Stay away from Amazon and eBay. At least idparts sells a Bentley manual I believe.

Thanks for the sites, ive been busy. Been doing a lot of reading, searching, and watching videos... I havent come across one yet that repaired the turbo. From that i would assume the preferred/recommended route is replacement with new. Correct? In my searches, ive often found it quite difficult to find this model yr and engine combo. Can find all other configurations, but seems to be the oddball with this package.

These turbos used can be hard to locate.

ALH Jetta owners like to use this turbo as a mild upgrade as it pushes more air than the stock ALH turbo.

I got lucky and found one at a local VW breaker.

Ok, managed to get a start on removing the turbo. Removed the air box, appears to have K&N aftermarket filter on it, I soaked the area with degreaser and hit it with a pressure washer to clean. Then proceeded to take the egr cooler off to make some room, after i had to search for a few hidden bolts. I assume the gaskets for the egr can be reused, or should i get new ones? I managed to pulled the downpipe partially out of the way. Took a pic with cell phone and can see on the turbine side the wheel resting on bottom, lots of movement. Side to side, and when i tried for axial movement i could have removed he turbine wheel if the downpipe was completely out of way. Took pick of the compressor side, some wheel damage, i assume occurred during the failure. Lots of side to side movement, cant get my fingers in to check for axial, but given an obvious broken shaft im sure its there as well. Tried to remove the oil line and ended up twisting it off with a broken line. I see most new turbos recommend a new line, i see why now, although cant quite see where other end connects, its looks like it ought to be fun to get to. Also noticed that there was lots of oil on backside of engine, not sure if that came from the turbo failure or if there may be a valve cover leaking or something. Is this typical of this type failure? At a bit of a sticking point now as i cant seem to remove the turbo from the exhaust manifold as i cannot turn the bolts circled, can get a wrench on them, just not enough room to turn the wrench. Any advice? Pictures for your viewing pleasure...

It appears you may also have a tandem pump gasket and/or leaky valve cover gasket. My dd passat had both when i got her

The oil pipe snakes around to the other side of the engine, at the oil filter housing. You'll have to take some more stuff apart to get that changed. Gotta be careful with those fittings.

I find it easier to just remove the intake manifold with the EGR cooler still attached, as the one EGR cooler bolt ends up getting to close to the VNT actuator upon removal.... obviously you can bend yours out of the way since it is junk anyway. But that won't help going back together.

Ball ended long Allen bits (good ones, like Snap-On), will be your friend here.

Second the ball ended allens

The nut from the bottom is tricky, but can be removed with a 13mm flex socket and extensions.

For the upper one nestled in the crook of the manifold...

Oxy acetylene torches.

ok, been a while, but got back to work on it. Im sure Ill sound like a newbie....thats because in regards to these cars I am a newbie. This is starting to become nightmare. Its got to be a statistical impossibility to have so much stuff that is all so friggin difficult to access. The deeper and more stuff i take off it should get easier, but it doesnt. Anyway... the ball end hex wrenches were the trick for the intake. That managed to get access to one of the bolts circled previous post. Then i realized there was just no way to access the other bolt from topside. So i then proceeded to work from underneath, which i had to jack up the car because like a dummy i didnt drive on any ramps. Having to figure out what how and where to remove things for the first time is an experience. Had to make two trips to town for the right tools. But then when i removed enough stuff to gain access from bottom all i managed to do was to strip the nut that i had partially rounded corners on while on topside. So now the exhaust manifold had to come out. Finding and accessing all the bolts for it were a trick as well. Managed to get that out, then i had to pull one of my old machinist tricks out of the bag and carefully grind the nut so not to damage the threads, then take a chisel and bust the nut to get some relief, then unscrew the nut. Like so....





Then i got positive confirmation that the turbo was indeed broken. Could almost remove the turbine wheel from the turbo. Cant seem to get a video uploaded, but took these still shots to try to show the approx 3/4" to 1" of axial movement.









So i got that taken care of. But when examining the new parts with the turbo i am a bit confused. It came with 4 pinch nuts. But looking at things, it seems i would need only 3 depending on one or the other flange that needs it, or it should be 6 nuts if needing for both flanges. Why only 4?


Then i decided to remove and flush the intercooler. Wow. Had to remove damn near the whole front end of the car to access that, what a pain. There were numerous curse words and frustrations not only for that but for removing the oil return line and supply line. I manage to get the banjo bolt off only to not be able to remove the line because of the clamp behind the engine on the cooling flange that i didnt know about, couldnt see, nor access but i knew something was there. Started removing the tandem pump so that i could access but after removing only 3 bolts i failed to notice the 4th bolt down low on the mount, yup, you guessed it, i put a pry bar to it and broke the hold down mount in that location with the bolt still in it. Damn. New pump was on order anyway, but i didnt intend to break this one. Then removed the cooling flange, replaced, and started to install the new oil supply line.






This is where things took another turn... I tried and tried and fought ad fought and dropped the copper crush washer at least 10 times if not the whole banjo bolt. Did manage to recover each time though. Fought and fought trying to get the bajo bolt started while holding my finger on end and turning with a wrench. I turned and turned and turned but it never would start. Cant fit my big hands where they need to be and cant get a socket on back. I fought this for approx two hrs trying everything i could think of. Finally managed to get a universal extension on a socket and turning by hand it could just barely catch the corners of the bolt and start threading. Then when it got a little tight i put the ratchet on the extension on sucked it on up. Only to then realize that the damn thing had cross threaded into the aluminum housing with the steel bolt. Double Damn. I tried numerous times to "re-tap" the threads with the bolt only have it end up cross threaded still. By this point Im so frustrated Im ready to cry uncle. I give up. I quit. Im ready to drag it somewhere to let someone that knows what they are doing, has the right tools, knows the right tricks, or has the proper setup take over. Ive never ever done that with a job on my other vehicles but thats where i was with this. Went to the only shop in town that i know of that works on foreign cars and as expected he really didnt want to mess with it and said that he was tied up and to contact him again in about 3 weeks. I then went to the local VW dealership and he wanted no part of it either. But did manage to get the replacement housing that i cross threaded the hole in identified and ordered. Ive got a neighbor who thinks he has a metric tap that he is going to try to locate ad retap the hole before i start tearing the other side of engine by apart. But Im convinced now that i dont want the banjo bolts back on there. Ive searched this evening but cant seem to locate the flex lines anywhere on the web. Im sure its there, but im tired and frustrated and just cant find it. Anyone got a link to help a buddy out? Now its back to the waiting game for parts to arrive. Damn this lil car is about to drive me insane. Ive worked on stuff that was difficult to access, but nothing like this, its damn near impossible if you dont know the tricks.

https://www.cascadegerman.com/?s=Turbo+oil+line&post_type=product&type_aws=true

They are available on eBay for less but I wouldn’t trust that good ol eBay quality for something whose failure would destroy a new $1k turbo or at worst your engine.

Amazing how different some people's experiences can be. I find these cars pretty easy to work on. Although the oil feed pipe is a bit of a bear to get swapped, I'll give you that, although the couple times I have had to do one I didn't have much trouble. I tend to take a lot of stuff out of the way.

The front end of the car is cake to take off, and it makes getting to things pretty easy, if not essential. I also know that dealing with things on the ground/ramps/jackstands presents a challenge that I have never really had to deal with thankfully. And when you have a lift, if it came down to it, you can have the entire powertrain out of the car and sitting on a cart under the car in a little over an hour.... then EVERYTHING is easy to get to!

That turbo pipe has to be darn near perfectly aligned to get the banjo bolt started.

BTW, if you are having problems with the ONE turbo on the BHW, imagine doing the TWO turbos on a biturbo V6 Audi Allroad:





Took almost a day of tedious work to get all the plumbing and what not out of the way AFTER the powertrain was out just to swap the turbochargers.

Don't feel bad. I cannot tolerate working on Ford trucks, and would rather go to the dentist than do ANYTHING on one of those. Fortunately I don't have to work on them, but the guys that do the cab lifts just to get at stuff know what they are doing. You should see the pile of Fail involved in a 6.0L PS "bulletproofing" routine.

Hey...i have an A-frame and a fork lift....pulling the cab for bullet proofing a 6.0 isn't bad. Once the cab is off everything on the for psd is easy to reach. I don't know why i purchased an excursion...thats a beast to lift off the frame.

Well, considering that this was my first foray into working on the car, i would say that i spent a good 60-70% of my time figuring out what NOT to do. God forbid if i have to do this again it wont take near as long because i already know what doesnt work. lol



I guess it all depends on your perspective, but i would view both situations as an engineerig failure (6.0 removing cab, and VW removing engine/front end for simple maintenance/repairs). Let me explain, i am a maintenance engineer for a industrial chemical plant, if ive got a machine down, its costing me money the longer its down. If there is that much extra work to address a simple repair/routine maintenance then it cost me that much more money the longer the machine is down. I would try to make things so that it is easier for my guys to work on. Now in the automotive service industry, this isnt the case. It doesnt matter that the extra work of removing the cab or front of car is a major part of the deal, because they are charging the customer $100+/hr for shop labor, no problem for them, they earn a minimum fee im sure just get ready to perform the repair. Just an observation from two points of view. But i digress...


Anyway, update, my neighbor was able to obtain a carbon steel metric tap of the correct size. But the shank was too long to get in the car and line up where it needed to be. So took a band saw, cut the shank shorter, welded a small nut onto the end, was able to get the tap into position, and with his smaller hands was able to reach it better than me and re-tap the hole. Was thinking that once i reconnect the oil line and spin the engine over to "prime" the line go to turbo before firing up, leave the turbo connection off, turn over the engine and let it discharge into a bucket to flush any metal shavings out of the way and not into the turbo. Stainless braid flex line on order, gonna try to call VW tomorrow and cancel that order i made in my frustration.



One thing that is on my mind though, what is the typical life of these turbos? Is 233,000 close to expected life? Wondering if it was just time, or if there may be another issue that caused this to happen? When i purchased the car in February it had just had the oil pump changed and filled with Amsoil fluids. I want to say the guy told me it was the Amsoil synthetic for euro cars, but to be honest i cant remember. I just remember Amsoil. This was the fluid that was in the car when it went south, with about 6000 miles on the oil. I had planned to do an early change and not the 10k that the book says because of it being new to me and the new parts installed for break-in wear. But obviously i didnt make that far. If im understanding things correctly, the issue could be a worn lobe on the cam without the correct oil. Is this easily verified? Is it viewable when pulling valve cover? Is it something that is recognizable by sight? Looking for anything else to check before i get back on the road. I would hate to do all this work and not correct the cause and go thru all this again. As always, any help is appreciated.

Turbos go when they go. Mine is at 220k and i don't have any issues YET.

the cam lobe wear is a much more common issue. Pop off the valve cover to check it out. Myturbodiesel.com has a good write up on it. If you don't have the bently manual pay the 10 bucks and buy a premium membership for all the repair/diagnostic wall thrus, videos and pics.

The only time I have ever seen a turbo fail on the BHW is when the oil pump drive fails, and the engine runs with no oil pressure.... turbo usually goes first.

That is why there is a gear drive upgrade for this engine, because over a decade ago VAG realized the chain drive was problematic.

Chances are THAT is what taxed the turbo to the point of failure soon after.

Ok, just stating what i was told by previous owner for information purposes.... he had the oil pump fail on him. To the point that without oil pressure the engine died. He replaced the oil pump, cam, and main bearings just this past January. He stated it was an upgraded pump. Which one? I dont know. At that time I hadnt done as much homework as i thought i had done and didnt know enough to ask for further details. He had an oil pressure gauge installed. When this happened the engine never died. When i pulled over on side of road and i killed the engine the oil did just barely register on dip stick. When my rescue arrived i refilled with oil and upon restarting i had 40psi+ of oil pressure when cold, which is what it showed before the failure. Ok, next question, is there way that i can inspect the oil pump to see which pump was installed? I got the car torn apart, may as well do what i can before i put it back together.

Google "BHW balance shaft", which will redirect you back here, or look in the B5 sticky section for all the info needed on the gear drive upgrade.

See where your compressor wheel is all dinged up? Throw that K+N in the trash.

Yeah, the only thing K&Ns are good for is wheel chocks. I use them in the shop when setting the lift arms under the car. They work great for that.

Ok, today i reached out to the previous owner to get some more specific information on what work was performed. he responded that he bought these parts and then had them installed by his local shop. He purchased the balance shaft delete kit as provided by CascadeGerman.com. As seen here..





And he also installed the following components that were also recommended except for the transmission service kit as listed here.






He also had put in Amsoil Synthetic for Euro Cars.







All of this was installed right around new years 2018. So my question is... whats the chances these parts have worn out in 6 mths? My short amount of time here it appears that CascadeGerman is a reputable vendor with good parts. Correct? Or could there possibly have been turbo damaged done 6 mths ago when the oil pump went south on him and it just now made it to the point of failure for me? Also, his brother was the previous owner before him and says that the cam was replaced at around 200,000 (33,000 miles ago).



I did some reading up on the balance shaft work as pointed out by oilhammer and that sure seems like a lot of work that i would want to try to avoid. But it appears that this work was done as recently as just 6mths ago. What to do? What to do? Hmmmmm... Also, I called back to VW dealer today and they did cancel/take back the order i had made for the oil filter housing. I canceled since was able to get it re-tapped with straight threads. Cost was $200, they refunded me $175... Ill take it.



Yea, i wasnt planning on keeping the K&N, just stating what i had found. Those K&Ns get a bad rap from turbo diesels all over no matter the make/brand. I was planning on throwing it anyway and replacing with the Mann filter as provided from the filter pack i purchased thru IDParts.com

The delete is fine, so long as you do not mind the extra vibes. Since this is I take it the only BHW Passat you've ever owned, you probably won't know the difference.

The turbo failure likely started when the original stuff was allowed to break, and the engine lost oil pressure. You are just dealing with the aftermath. It is not likely to ever happen again.

Thats what i was hoping for and wanting to hear. Now that ive had a few days to calm down from my ealier week meltdown, im ready to finish installation this weekend. And yes, you are correct, this is my my first VW of any type, how can you tell? haha. Since I dont know what the before was like, my only experience has been the after delete kit install, I think it feels fine to me. I cant even tell that its "more" vibration. But i have no frame of reference, and i suppose thats why all the newer mounts were recommend to dampen out any vibes.

I don't worry about the vibes from my bs deleted BHW, ive owned several inline 4 diesels and this motor is a sewing machine compared to all of them. I hear/feel more vibes than before the delete at idle . Off idle she's smooth as any gasser....smoother than my 91 Chevy 4.3.

You are a fair way south - I would not worry about the additional vibration.

The only time mine becomes noticeable is when the car is dead cold and the temperatures are well below freezing.

I don't think you'll have that issue in Louisiana...

Don't listen to these guys the vibration is horrible