reliable turbo cars

[yul carlinsky]

Many people say that they have problems with their turbo cars such driving in the low revs and over heating on long journeys . i would like to know what could be done to make cars using big turbos more reliable for frequent use.

[pgarner]

decent cooling - both water and oil along with somewhere for the hot air to escape to.

At low revs the only problems i have a low revs, sub 1800, is major lag. 1800-2700 rpm minor lag and above 2700 next to unnoticable

[HDi fun]

Turbos are de facto standards on commercial vehicles and railway diesel engines. THere's no reason for them to cause reliability problems provided that you:

a: let the engine warm up for several minutes before using full power

b: let it cool for 2-3 minutes after harding use before switching off.

Obviously, keep oil changes done and use high quality oils.

In this way a turbocharged engine should happily cover the 250,000 miles plus that a NATASP engine will cover without any need for remedial work.

[xavier]

As long as you look after them like what HDI said you shouldn't have a problem with them. I would say that Turbo Diesels are better than petrols though because they are not as hot and high revving.

Most VAG turbos are pretty strong and reliable.

[HDi fun]

petrol exhaust temps are very high.

Even under the most brutal usage the engine oil [406 2.2 HDi remapped] only just about makes 110 celcius. THis, clearly, is not the time to switch off the engine

[pgarner]

mine sits at 85 most of the time going up to 90-95 on mway driving sitting around 80mph

hard driving 110 same as hdi gets

highest ive seen was 120 when my water pump had failed oil basically doing all my engine cooling on it on

[HDi fun]

Blimey - you're lucky to still have an engine left!!!

[pgarner]

what with the 120 yeah, was very worried about that when i seen it shoot so far up, only held it for around half a min as spulled over and let it cool down.

[waynne]

I hit the red in my Rover, the guage stuck and then suddely freed itself as it went thermonuclear. Thankfully there was no damage done. Although the engine did die shortly afterwards with what I think was a cracked piston ring.

As has been said before the modern turbo car is very reliable, even when it is remapped. Always use a good quality of oil and allow the thing to cool down properly after a spirited drive.

[RapidWagon]

Hi Yul,

I think the sentiment may be somewhat outdated with 'modern' cars. I myself have an Impreza turbo with about 110,000 miles on the clock and it's runs just fine. Even though I do take every available opportunity to use as much as possible of the availbale power, it fits in with what HDI and Waynne have both said:
The car gets warmed up before the turbo gets taxed;
The engine gets run down off of turbo before she's parked up;
Oil changes are every three or four months.

On that note, I got a cracking deal from Opie a couple of weeks ago and I've just had another email from them saying free shipping this weekend. Check them out, there are some bargains to be had!

Cheers
RW

[waynne]

Hey RW - quite a few of us use Opie! See if you can get us a club discount when you are next in contact?

[HDi fun]

I use performance oils limited as they have a warehouse not far away so I can collect and avoid postage costs. My current poison is AMSOIL DEO 5w/40 fully synthetic which I leave in for a full 12,000 miles at a time. It's a good oil in my opinion.

Previously I was a Millers XFD user but I feel that Millers is currently lagging behind state of the art diesel oils.

An oil temperature gauge is invaluable in determining warm up and cool down times. I was surprised to find my car fitted with one as standard. It's interesting to note tha oil and coolant temperatures don't 'track' at all, despite the fact there's also an oil/water heat exchanger somewhere under the bonnet.

Something worth doing every year or so is using a jet wash to clean up the intercooler and coolant radiators. I do this simply by opening the bonnet and attacking them in situ.

[pgarner]

yeah my water can show 90 when my oils only showing 60 its another good 5 mins of normal driving to get the oil up to normal temps.