Hi all : see quite a number of posts on here regarding blown:rolleyes: turbos on TDIs of various sorts & mileages. I havn't noticed so much on Petrol knackered turbos ...or is this just because there arn't so many about .

i.e. most Diesels have turbos & until very recently most petrols dont. I have a 1.8tsi and am becoming nervous about long term turbo issues & relatively high repir costs potentially arising. Don't really want to start getting £1500 bills when the damm thing is 4years old :confused:

I think that reliability on petrols is a bit better than on diesels.

There are a lot of 1.8T Mk1 VRs about and similarly engined Leons, Golfs and A3,A4s.

I believe the thing that commonly kills turbos is sticking recirculation valves caused by sooting. Petrols don't produce as much soot as diesels so don't suffer from the same problems.

Also I think (but might well be wrong) that diesel turbos run at higher pressures and are more stressed.

You should be fine. The turbos in the petrol engines operate in a totally different way to those in the TDI engine.

is part of the reason for diesel turbos failing that people are running huge mileages (hence justifying a diesel) on knackered oil, on variable servicing ?

Perhaps manufacturers are gambling that failures will occur outside warranty.

I have my touran 2.0tdi on fixed, not variable, and it gets done at least annually.

Better to spend more on regular fresh oil, than on a new turbo ?

I do huge mileage, on variable servicing. My car has more than 60K miles on the clock and is only a week over 3 years old, its had the oil changed 3 times, and my car at this point is totally original and had nothing fail except a small sensor that cost pennies.

I think the big issue revolves around checking things like oil level. Its a known fact that the 2.0tdi likes to use oil, and if not checked could lead to oil starvation and failure of the turbo. I am not saying thats the cause of all failures, but dare I say if people checked routine things like oil levels more often there would be less failures.

I do huge mileage, on variable servicing. My car has more than 60K miles on the clock and is only a week over 3 years old, its had the oil changed 3 times, and my car at this point is totally original and had nothing fail except a small sensor that cost pennies.

I think the big issue revolves around checking things like oil level. Its a known fact that the 2.0tdi likes to use oil, and if not checked could lead to oil starvation and failure of the turbo. I am not saying thats the cause of all failures, but dare I say if people checked routine things like oil levels more often there would be less failures.

I'd be inclined to agree with you, in general.

Although I'd say that I do actually check my oil level (etc) at least twice a week, and always before any long run. In the 6months 17.5k of my ownership (of it's 76k) I've topped up with 2 litres of oil to spec VW 506 01 (the dear longlife stuff). I always allow the engine to warm up & warm down before or after any turbo usage, it's also rarely used in heavy town traffic as I work shifts. My car being the latest added to the TDI turbo failure thread, hence the slightly "defensive" tone.

My previous 1.9TDI did 110k in my 4 years of ownership & rarely needed top-ups between the 10k services.

I'd read a thread about crankcase breather gasses being re-fed into the air intake, I'm not sufficiently qualified to comment, but I can't see that being a particularly good idea for keeping the turbo soot-free.

For some reason the 1.9tdi seems better on oil than the 2.0tdi. The 2.0tdi has 2 cams and twice as many valves as the 1.9 and thats the main difference really (apart from 100cc of course). I know that I need to put between 1-1.5 litres in mine between services but thats not really that bad because each service is every 18K or so.

I have a Passat 1.8T (the engine used in the Mk1 Octavia vRS) that I bought new in 1998. I've done 155000 miles; the car has been serviced according to book intervals, mostly at dealers. No trouble with the turobcharger - or anything else other than wear parts and very minor items.

My experience from working in the motor trade is that modern diesel engines are to be avoided unless you can make a sound financial case - e.g. covering more than 20k miles a year.

The majority of diesels are reliable, but when they do go wrong the cost and complexity of repair means that bills can rapidly spiral to 4 figures. Petrols just tend to be a little bit simpler and cheaper to fix.

A friend of mine has his own diesel repair workshop and himself drives a petrol car - make of that what you will! He went over completely to doing diesel repairs a couple of years ago because he reckons he can make more profit. Diesel repair expertise and equiment is less readily available and so he can get away with charging a higher labour rate.