Morning all! 👋

Well I haven’t exactly had the best morning! After spending the last 2 weeks preping my little Fabia for its MOT today, after 99% of its journey to the test station being perfectly smooth and nice, the last 1% ended up in a cloud of smoke and an engine runaway (that thankfully stopped when I cut the ignition!!).

Literally 50m from the test station it looks like the turbo oil seals have let go! 😢🤦‍♂️.

The garage is now taking a look instead of doing my MOT.

So, if this is the case, what is the cheapest and easiest way of replacing/repairing the turbo and what sort of a job is it to do?

Ive seen the turbo core kits for £60-100 on eBay (just had a quick look for an idea) but are they worth it or reliable?

The car is on 173k and doesn’t owe me lots but isn’t worth doing?! 🤔

I’m ok at working on cars and engines as I’m an engineer by trade (not a mechanic lol), but I’m waying up my options on how to go from here!

Any advice appreciated

Thanks all 👍

When my old volvo turbo blew up I just bought a fairly cheap second hand one and it was fine for years. I may have been lucky. Few on ebay but reckon might be tricky getting a decent one. Might be worth contacting some breakers to see if they have anything thats guaranteed working/low mileage etc. A recore job is possible but has to be done properly and everything accurately balanced etc to avoid early failure. You could see if you could maybe get a recon echange unit.

Alasdair

I got a recore kit fitted by a local garage to my golf 1.9td about a year ago. It lasted 7 miles. Got it towed back to the garage where he refused to do it again and refused to reimburse me. I ended up buying a used turbo off Ebay and getting it fitted. Not had a problem in the 8500miles since. I wouldn't go down the recore route unless it was with a turbo rebuild specialist. Incidentally the garage that did the job originally is now defunct.