Turbo lifetime???

[hoopsbhoy]

Myself and a few mates were just chatting about the difference between some of the turbos in our cars and I was just wondering what peolpe thought or if there are any hard facts out there as to the life of a turbo.

I know different mods etc will effect that but say a completly standard car, well looked after and a standard turbo, how long miles/kms would a turbo be good for?? opinions or hard facts

[Arnie]

*manufacturer opinion* the turbo is supposed to last the life of the vehicle.

If the vehicle had a hard life or "borrowed life" then you can guess.

I've seen well maintained s14's from UK with full service history at 140+kmls on original turbos but bear in mind that was std boost, turbo heated up and cooled down properly, most importantly no skimping on oil !!!

Important factor is that if you free up the exhaust (replace std with free flow straight through) turbos usually start to smoke as there's less backpressure - easy to fix at this stage.

I rebuild a turbo once I feel the play in it. It's easy and cheap to do this way. Wait till it starts smoking or has in/out play due to oil starvation/boost too high and there's no point taking it apart.

[yowdy]

it all depends on how the engine is treated,, if the oil is changed and what oil is used,, if its getting good clean air,, how the engine is drove,, if it is let warm up an cool down

[Stevo]

Depends entirely on luck imo, how well maintained and how hard previous owners have drivin the car, sum diesel cars are well known for turbo problems..

[alan opel]

ive the original turbo off my nova engine, has done 150k miles, and is boosting at 1.2 bar no bother to it thats a kkk turbo, ive seen garretts gone at under 100k, but as said totaly depends on a number of factors

[Arnie]

The boost level factor depends on the type of turbo used, ie I wouldn't push t25/t28 etc over 1 bar (and I'd use uprated thrust bearing then) whereas if you look at the spec on TD series of turbos (Mitsubishi) with addition of performance thrust they are suggested to run at 1.5 bar and maximum allowed boost is 2.8 bar

I'm running a Mitsubishi turbo obviously

[hoopsbhoy]

Ya I know there is alot of factors that effect it alright. Like the turbo in my own car was replaced by the original garage that sold it after 50,000 miles, and i have all ther receipts for servicing that car through all that time, it was serviced by place that sold it from brand new and the same fella owned it all that time too, plus it was completly standard (i know that dosnt mean it wasnt abused in other ways), so it just got me wondering.

The car now has 94,000 miles on it and is still completely standard and has had as good a life as I can assess from all the paperwork.

[git]

wha ????????? sure its very hard for anyone to keep track of how healthy there snail is ....lads buy turbos 2nd hand 90 percent of the time sure ,and even before that im sure theyve been rebuilt itd be fair enough to say in this sport they go threw a harder life than standard driving ........... so to answer your question ill say that its nearly impossible to know 1 month 2 months a year 5 years ??? .......... from new even it could be any amount of time