09 Sportwagen - blown turbo

[jvance]

Hey all, long time no see.

At just shy of 23k miles, the turbo failed. My wife was driving at the time, and told me there was a dramatic loss of power, followed by white smoke out the tailpipe. She pulled off the road and quickly shut it down. The dealer was closed so I had the car towed back to our house. I tried to start it just to back it into the garage (we've had some car vandalism problems in the neighborhood), but the engine wouldn't turn over.

It's now at the dealer, who has determined that the turbo failed and fed oil into the intake until the engine hydralocked. A new turbo is on order, and they will run a compression test once everything is drained and the turbo is installed to determine whether there is more damage.

Other than this, it's been a great car Best combination of driveability and utility I've ever owned. I will keep you all apprised of progress, and I welcome any input.

 

[TDIFred]

very sorry to hear it, let us know how the warranty repair goes on that!

 

[tdiatlast]

So... no symptoms/issues prior to the failure? Do you drive it vigorously or gently?

23k for turbo failure/hydrolock is pretty scary...Hope you've got a good dearler service department.

 

[jvance]

So... no symptoms/issues prior to the failure? Do you drive it vigorously or gently?

23k for turbo failure/hydrolock is pretty scary...Hope you've got a good dearler service department.

Yep - no symptoms. It was a sudden and dramatic loss of power. From what I've been reading that's consistent with a seal failure. It was driven 90% gently and 10% vigorously. The 20k oil change was a little late - less than 1000 miles ago. My experience with this dealer thus far is that the sales department is ****e while the service department seems pretty competent.

 

[MonsterTDI09]

One question was there oil in the I/C and it got ingested,or did the turbo seal let go all ay once? If it did let go how can that hydro lock the engine in stead of the engine run away ?

 

[jvance]

@MonsterTDI - A friend who is a former Cummins diesel tech told me about the runaway engine problem. I don't know why that didn't happen here. My service advisor told me that the turbo bearing was loose also. All I can say is once the car was shut down, it would not crank subsequently.

I should have the car back Monday, barring further damage. Everything is under warranty, including the loaner car.

Digression - the loaner is a '11 Jetta 2.5. It's OK but I don't like the seats and the dash is hard plastic. There is definitely some noticeable decontenting. The trunk however is hyuuuge!

 

[Pelican18TQA4]

Be glad you made it to 23k...the turbo on my car failed right around the 8k mile mark. The new turbo gave no trouble from there past the 40k mile mark when I traded the car.

 

[jvance]

Quick update!

I got the car back with a new turbo, went out to dinner with the family, and the check engine light came on while driving home. I took it back to the dealer who determined that compression was low in one cylinder. Bent rod. VW is shipping out a whole new engine and I should get my car back around the end of the month.

 

[tdiatlast]

I guess there was no need to check compression when changing a failed turbo? Is that correct?

I'd love to know the sequence of events around this failure. Is there any way to pinpoint the cause?

Sorry for your trouble. Hope the new engine works out!

 

[jvance]

I guess there was no need to check compression when changing a failed turbo? Is that correct?

They mentioned that it was difficult to check compression with oil everywhere. I'm not a mechanic, so my bs detector is uncalibrated for this. It does seem like they put the turbo on, threw it out the door and hoped for the best. In software terms, that would be using your customers as beta testers

But it's not much inconvenience for me. Hopefully they'll connect everything up properly when they get the new engine.

 

[740GLE]

In software terms, that would be using your customers as beta testers

but were the best beta testers ever!!! Cause we pay for the honor of it.