Is this a china turbo on my car?

So I bought this car about a year ago and have put around 10k miles ago, car drives fine has good power no turbo issues no limp mode etc no oil consumption, previous owner told me he swapped the turbo and it was relatively new, so I decided to take a look at the turbo and compare it to pics of KP39 turbos on google (this is a bew engine) and some look like mine others dont, some have a diferent actuator etc. Sadly I cant really check the plate on the turbo because its hard to get in there. What am I dealing with here? Its been going over 10k miles now trouble free maybe the actuator was swapped??? I dont get it. Heres a pic http://imgur.com/a/sTUEetE

Lol im dumb, I realized my engine is a euro spec AXR with a kp39 but its a dif kind then american spec engine, the one on my car is this one https://www.darksidedevelopments.co...er-for-1-9-tdi-vw-golf-mk4-pd100-axr-bsw.html does anyone know the diferences? No wonder its been like 20k miles on the car and hasnt blown pretty sure a chinese one would by now.

I don't see any wiring harness on the darkside pic. My KP39 on my BEW does have one.
That actuator does look kind of new in the absence of any rust. I had to replace mine two years ago because it rusted through and would not hold vacuum.

Eh, chinesium turbos and the like are all kinda hit or miss. I've had some aftermarket CHAR replacements go a long way and have had some just fail right out of the box. It really depends on the maker. If it's going strong at 20k. I would not worry about it.

JB05 said:

I don't see any wiring harness on the darkside pic. My KP39 on my BEW does have one.
That actuator does look kind of new in the absence of any rust. I had to replace mine two years ago because it rusted through and would not hold vacuum.

Click to expand...

Yeah it seems euro spec kp39s do not have a wiring harness on the actuator no clue why that is, thats why I got confused originally because us spec kp39 have the wiring harness, mine being a german AXR does not have the harness however it is still a kp39.

Right, so I got under the car and managed to snap a few pics of the nameplate on the turbo, it is not blue like other borgwarner ones ive seen https://i.imgur.com/SpFGpXA.jpg
however, the part no. etc is accurate for an AXR engine. Is this real or not?

Hard to see but it says:
Model: KP39
Part No.: 5439 988 0018
Serial: 18050342