VW Golf - Turbo Disaster! - breathelifecentre

My poor poor Golf and my even poorer pocket. I bought a GT DTI 1.9 X reg 3 1/2 months ago. Its been at the garage for 1 1/2. Turbo blew after having been replaced only two years prior. The car is originally a 115BHP but was replaced with a 130BHP. The garage have said that all the breather pipes were heavily gunked and have now been changed.

I purchased a recon turbo from Turbo Solutions. I don't think the garage changed the feed pipe when putting the recon on. The turbo blew again and Turbo Solutions reported the damage as the bearings running dry. I then had to pay for this to be repaired. The garage have now fitted the second replacement and say that it's working (obviously I'm not feeling overly confident).

However, and its a rather large 'HOWEVER', the intercooler was replaced with a new one prior the first recon fit. Now, when the garage uped the revs, the new intercooler blew to pieces! Bugga!

I personally think that the intercooler was blocked with a piece of the intercooler, regardless, my opinion is that the intercooler should never had blown, but a pipe should've come off.

Does anyone have an opinion on what the hell is going on?

Who's possibly in the wrong?

Whether I should clean out the sump?

Is there a way of testing before destroying another intercooler?

Here's a pre BIG thanks for any help.... THANKS!

VW Golf - Turbo Disaster! - madf

You have a non standard car. Has the ECU and wiring been uprated?

Your garage are incompetent.

Change them

Having said all that, there is in my view no chance of diagnosing .any faults as some may be the installation, service or the garage. But it sounds like the turbo boost control does not work..

But then it's non standard so...

Edited by madf on 31/12/2010 at 08:11

VW Golf - Turbo Disaster! - Hamsafar

When you say was 110 and now 130, do you mean a newer 130 engine?

or modified 110?

VW Golf - Turbo Disaster! - breathelifecentre

The previous owner works at a VW breakers. The original engine of 115BHP died and instead of repairing it he just put a replacement in. The replacement was a 130BHP engine from a Seat that had done 46k. The car had since (apparently) run fine and seemingly so for the two months I was driving it.

At the time of engine change he had it re-mapped and I have since seen the guy who had done this. He plugged it in and all was running fine before the death. Having spoken to this guy several times he really does seem to know what he's saying and comes across very genuine.

I have just been to the garage and seen the intercooler, its the two plastic parts that have popped off so nothing major. Told them to get eurocar parts to replace it, shouldn't happen in my opinion. The garage had also told me that the car was driven up and down the road, about 1km and all fine. The pop happened when the revs were being held at 3500 revs for the MOT. They say overboosting.

I have asked them to fit the replacement intercooler and get it plugged into a VAG-COM to see if anything comes up.

Thanks for your help ; )

VW Golf - Turbo Disaster! - Collos25

A side issue to your problem have informed your insurance company that it is a different more powerful engine .

VW Golf - Turbo Disaster! - breathelifecentre

Yes, didn't make much difference really.

VW Golf - Turbo Disaster! - breathelifecentre

The other thing the garage have said is a possibility is the bottom end of the engine. Issue with this is that the engine itself is very young. So many people have told me that this is massively unlikely due to the engines age and that it just doesn't happen to these VW engines.

VW Golf - Turbo Disaster! - breathelifecentre

Is there anyone out there, there, there (eco).

VW Golf - Turbo Disaster! - Collos25

I am sorry to say it does happen with engines when they have played around with. The original owner managed to blow the first engine and it appears he was on the way to blowing this one.

Edited by Andy Bairsto on 04/01/2011 at 20:04