Turbo let go on the fabia tonight! Absolutely fuming!! As most of you know my turbo went a couple of months ago, impeller met housing and made a mess! I bought a new CHRA Cartridge and got it fitted at a garage, it was fine for the past month albeit boost leak which I simply couldn’t find, all the parts I’ve ordered to make my own boost leak tester are arriving tomorrow aswell!! 

 

Now tonihht whilst driving, come on Boost, car was properly warmed up etc pop noise thought ahh boost hose has come off, throttle wasn’t responding, smoke pouring out bonnet quickly shut the car off, removed lower Boost hose and lots of oil followed, im guessing the shaft has snapped, what on earth would cause this! Especially on a new cartridge?! 

 

Think it’s time to bite the bullet and buy a PD150 Garret unit? 

Were the turbo hoses changed as well? Full oil and filter change after 500 miles? Lot's of things can cause a turbo to fail. Bets bet is to take it back to the garage, as they are under obligation to rectify the fault under warranty (parts and labour should be 12 months minimum - unless you supplied the insert to them, in which case they can say no.....)

Have you checked you've got good oil pressure to the turbo? did you replace or thoroughly clean the oil feed & return pipe?

You will need to remove the turbo to see exactly where it failed, if everything was done correctly it could just be a bad cartridge, although if you purchased from a decent company they shouldn't have failed so quickly

When the original turbo failed I changed the intercooler from smic to full FMIC and hardpipe setup to avoid another turbo failure, the oil feed pipe was removed and cleaned out with brake cleaner and air line, aswell as the oil return. I primed the turbo up by removing the fuel fuse and cranking over the engine to let oil pressure build up before initial fire up. Once I was happy I let the car idle for around 15 minutes before driving. The only thing I can think of is boost leak, I had ordered all the parts to make my own boost leak tester which will be arriving today, overspin possibly caused the failure? I’m hoping I can get turbo replaced under warranty but who knows. The car hadn’t even covered 500 miles, but the oil and filter was changed when replacing this turbo. It was making the siren noise not long after fitting, but only at low rpm, normal driving it stopped however dipping the clutch to change gear or pulling away made the siren noise, so possible impeller damage, the car also struggled to make full boost, either due to impeller damage and boost leak, causing the turbo to work harder to make requested boost which caused the failure possibly? 

Bad CHRA or badly fitted is the only reasonable explanation.

I got the CHRA from that Latvian company Sepul, fitting shouldn’t of been an issue, bloke who fitted it has fitted hundreds without any issue. Could it be down to the map? 

Well that sucks!

2 hours ago, JaamesVRS said:

I got the CHRA from that Latvian company Sepul, fitting shouldn’t of been an issue, bloke who fitted it has fitted hundreds without any issue. Could it be down to the map? 

 

No.

 

It's a failure due to component quality, get it replaced under warranty.

Potentially could be the map if it killed your first turbo and now another, what boost are you putting through the standard turbo?

 

Although if you had a boost leak potentially not, I'd be asking for it to be sorted under warranty.

Well tonight I removed the turbo and this is what I found.... oops! 

 

Not a a great deal! Car rolled 166.8bhp and 325ftb, believe it’s about 25psi according to Boost gauge

Edited 7 March, 20188 yr by JaamesVRS

Some sort of alignment issue, from fitting/manufacture?? Hence the siren noise you mentioned, which ultimately has caused the bearing to give up.  “That Latvian company”, doesn’t immediately feel me with confidence :/    What bearings does/did it use?? Ball or journal??  Unlucky mate, certainly not ideal!!

Edited 7 March, 20188 yr by Clarke2744

Company is called nerings. They have 18,000+ feedback what is 99.8% positive, most of the negative feedback was lack of communication due to wrong item being sent or not received etc. They have sent me another core, which should arrive over the next few days! In terms of fitting, it has the alignment peg on it so can’t really be fitted incorrectly? Slots straight into a dowel basically! 

1 hour ago, JaamesVRS said:

Well tonight I removed the turbo and this is what I found.... oops! 

 

Not a a great deal! Car rolled 166.8bhp and 325ftb, believe it’s about 25psi according to Boost gauge

 

Wow, all the oil in there as well, I bet the bushes have been leaking oil through the seals all along reducing oil pressure and causing the shaft to touch the bushes causing wear eventually leading to the impeller touching the casing then exploding.

 

Definite warranty, nothing to do with the map whatsoever, just really poor manufacturing tolerances.

They have sent me another item! I’m hoping this replacement CHRA will be okay :/ worried now! 

If you search nerings on google comes up with plenty of videos of them balancing their turbos etc seem to be a decent company!! Now the intercooler is full of oil! How should I go about flushing it? Front mount intercooler btw, remove fill with petrol shake about and dump? Or what? Obviously going to clean all boost pipes out too with brake cleaner to get rid of all oil and contaminants, already blasted through the oil feed pipe again with brake cleaner until it come out crystal clear and air line, can’t see what else would of made it fail!!

With greatest respect, I sill wouldn’t touch them with a barge pole. The shafts probably made of ‘chinesium’ , and the balancing, toloarancing and everything else will never be of the same standard as Garrett or any other reputable turbo company. And on top of that you’re combining something that’s already a reduced specification/standard with more stress from a remap.   Beckons the saying buy cheap buy twice. :/    I would go for the Garrett PD150 as you mentioned. 

Regarding flushing it through, I haven’t experience in doing that, but yeah as you said flush all the boost pipes out. Perhaps the FMIC may have granted you a bit of luck and should hold most of the filings (logic being its much bigger so filings have further to travel to get through it(?)) however follow all the intake upto the manifold and flush it all out completely.. doing everything you can to prevent it getting into the engine - the remains of turbine blade etc being you’re main concern over the oil obvs. ....hope that helps! 

 

 

 

Also another thought, do I remember you mentioning an exhaust leak when you fitted the CHRA from last time??? - could this have cooked the oil lines at all, blocking them??  Can’t remember if that was you or another post I was reading. 

Edited 7 March, 20188 yr by Clarke2744

17 minutes ago, Clarke2744 said:

With greatest respect, I sill wouldn’t touch them with a barge pole. The shafts probably made of ‘chinesium’ , and the balancing, toloarancing and everything else will never be of the same standard as Garrett or any other reputable turbo company. And on top of that you’re combining something that’s already a reduced specification/standard with more stress from a remap.   Beckons the saying buy cheap buy twice. :/    I would go for the Garrett PD150 as you mentioned. 

 

There's no extra stress from a remap, peak boost is still the same, in fact the OP was complaining that peak boost was actually down a few PSI after the rebuild.

 

8 minutes ago, Clarke2744 said:

Regarding flushing it through, I haven’t experience in doing that, but yeah as you said flush all the boost pipes out. Perhaps the FMIC may have granted you a bit of luck and should hold most of the filings (logic being its much bigger so filings have further to travel to get through it(?)) however follow all the intake upto the manifold and flush it all out completely.. doing everything you can to prevent it getting into the engine - the remains of turbine blade etc being you’re main concern over the oil obvs. ....hope that helps! 

 

 

 

Also another thought, do I remember you mentioning an exhaust leak when you fitted the CHRA from last time??? - could this have cooked the oil lines at all, blocking them??  Can’t remember if that was you or another post I was reading. 

 

No need to worry about tiny bits of alloy getting to the engine, the engine will just spit them straight out of the exhaust, anything larger won't get through the intercooler passages.

 

I agree that the CHRA is probably low quality but even so, the OP's getting another one for free and it would be crazy not to use it.

Of course I’m going to give the new one a whirl, any further issues I will go the Garrett route, please look at the reviews for nerings though, people all over the world are really praising them, all different Types of cars and customers too, standard, mapped, tuned etc! 

 

It wasnt me mate no, I had a boost leak which I reckon could be the cause of the failure infact I’ve got a video of the boost gauge dropping away when it was on Boost! Possible impeller damage 

Well good luck!!! Fingers crossed it as just a one off dodgy one. 

I bloody hope so mate! Seems like Deja Vu, only was doing this exact same process a month ago!!

It does look like a bad core and the fact they are sending out a replacement with out question suggests they are used to it.  

 

Were the VNT blades stripped and cleaned correctly, if it were me I would fit the new core And put a standard map on the car, then I would check the actuator is set up correctly via vcds and adjust if necessary. 

 

Run it it like this for a while and if all is well with no issues I would upload the map  back on to it.  

 

Who mapped it btw? 

Seems strange we changed the core however when the bolts on the housing are tightened the compressor wheel doesn’t spin at all unless the bolts are loose 

Also I have 2 dead cores one good, none of them spin freely the exhaust side is catching on something almost you can hear it rubbing but as soon as any torque applied to bolts that’s it doesn’t spin, the hot side was seized solid when the shaft snapped however no damage to hot side wheel, the hot side housing on the other side looks rather rough :( is this throw away jobby or rescue with a bit of wet and dry?