Quoted £1500 for turbo repair (Touran TDI 2.0 BKD)
Discussion
Hi,
Greetings to the forum, and thanks for reading.
Bought a Touran earlier this year, to discover after purchase there was a bit of oil in the coolant.
In the past few weeks/days it has been losing coolant to the extent that the coolant level warning comes on after about 3 hours of motorway driving.
On route to holiday, experienced a loss of power, and saw lots of white smoke in rear view. Found a bit of brown mayonaise under the oil cap. Got recovered to holiday destination, as it was 20 minutes away, while home was 130 miles. Have now realised why people get recovered home as AA don't do second recovery and it's £400 to get recovered home now.
So looking at local independent. He has inspected the fault codes with VAG Com, and come up with not much, then on further inspection, reported that the turbo 'has destroyed itself'. He has now quoted £1500 for repair as follows:
£800 + vat for new turbo
5 hours labour for removal and refit
1 hours labour for re-fit of hp oil lines to turbo
labour charged at £50 (no vat on labour)
When asked about further more economical options, he gave a negative view of recon turbos, but did say he might be able to do a rebuild depending on what he finds when cracking the old turbo open.
He quoted:
350 ish for new parts, bearings etc possibly for the re-build plus half an hour of labour
600 ish for a recon turbo
While he sounds honest and knowledgeable, my concerns are that I read that the stock labour for a turbo refit on a BKD is 3 hours not 6, and I've seen reports of recon turbos around for £350 ish.
Any thoughts?
Cheers,
JD
Greetings to the forum, and thanks for reading.
Bought a Touran earlier this year, to discover after purchase there was a bit of oil in the coolant.
In the past few weeks/days it has been losing coolant to the extent that the coolant level warning comes on after about 3 hours of motorway driving.
On route to holiday, experienced a loss of power, and saw lots of white smoke in rear view. Found a bit of brown mayonaise under the oil cap. Got recovered to holiday destination, as it was 20 minutes away, while home was 130 miles. Have now realised why people get recovered home as AA don't do second recovery and it's £400 to get recovered home now.
So looking at local independent. He has inspected the fault codes with VAG Com, and come up with not much, then on further inspection, reported that the turbo 'has destroyed itself'. He has now quoted £1500 for repair as follows:
£800 + vat for new turbo
5 hours labour for removal and refit
1 hours labour for re-fit of hp oil lines to turbo
labour charged at £50 (no vat on labour)
When asked about further more economical options, he gave a negative view of recon turbos, but did say he might be able to do a rebuild depending on what he finds when cracking the old turbo open.
He quoted:
350 ish for new parts, bearings etc possibly for the re-build plus half an hour of labour
600 ish for a recon turbo
While he sounds honest and knowledgeable, my concerns are that I read that the stock labour for a turbo refit on a BKD is 3 hours not 6, and I've seen reports of recon turbos around for £350 ish.
Any thoughts?
Cheers,
JD
No problem with refurbished turbos from a reputable outfit; a new one from VW is a fair bit more than £800 too.
Expect 5-600 for the turbo and ~4 hours labour. Turbo replacements are often a little bit of a faff with broken/stuck studs and bolts.
EDIT: We've recently been using a company called TUrboservice24.
Expect 5-600 for the turbo and ~4 hours labour. Turbo replacements are often a little bit of a faff with broken/stuck studs and bolts.
EDIT: We've recently been using a company called TUrboservice24.
Edited by Dr G on Saturday 30th August 08:53
Water in the oil or vice versa is not a turbo problem unless there is something I don't know. That's usually the reserve of head gasket failure or the likes. If he';s checking for fault codes for a mechanical failure like smoke/steam using VAG com I'd be a bit worried.
Recon turbos can be good news if done properly but you need to ask the question "why has the turbo gone in the 1st place? If your HG has gone your oil could be contaminated with water rendering it useless regarding lubricating the high temp bearings in a turbo. This is probably the cause, if you don't sort the cause it will happen again quickly.
A turbo can be replaced cheaply it's the other bits that have problems that have caused the failure in the first place you need to be aware of.
Recon turbos can be good news if done properly but you need to ask the question "why has the turbo gone in the 1st place? If your HG has gone your oil could be contaminated with water rendering it useless regarding lubricating the high temp bearings in a turbo. This is probably the cause, if you don't sort the cause it will happen again quickly.
A turbo can be replaced cheaply it's the other bits that have problems that have caused the failure in the first place you need to be aware of.
Thanks for the replies.
Regarding the use of VAG Com, he was looking for a turbo under or overboost initially to see if investigating the main failure was in the direction of turbo or head gasket.
As the turbo is broken, we're assuming there is not a head gasket failure at the same moment, but maybe this has also happened. Knowing I had coolant loss and oil in the water, seeing the mayonaise around the oil cap lead me to think this was a head gasket failure at first. I don't know how he found that the turbo was destroyed without opening it. Perhaps you can look into the manifold and see?
Regarding the oil, a full oil change was mentioned. The car is on long life, and he's quoted £65 for a full oil change. Could the wrong oil type being put in have gummed up the oil feed to the turbo? It does seem as if there has been oil starvation, and it's true he hasn't said he knows why it happened in the first place.
I have no way of knowing if this chap is legit unfortunately, so I am at his mercy. He hasn't started taking things apart yet, so it seems fair that he hasn't diagnosed the cause. I just wanted to see if what he has said rings true before getting to start work.
Regarding the use of VAG Com, he was looking for a turbo under or overboost initially to see if investigating the main failure was in the direction of turbo or head gasket.
As the turbo is broken, we're assuming there is not a head gasket failure at the same moment, but maybe this has also happened. Knowing I had coolant loss and oil in the water, seeing the mayonaise around the oil cap lead me to think this was a head gasket failure at first. I don't know how he found that the turbo was destroyed without opening it. Perhaps you can look into the manifold and see?
Regarding the oil, a full oil change was mentioned. The car is on long life, and he's quoted £65 for a full oil change. Could the wrong oil type being put in have gummed up the oil feed to the turbo? It does seem as if there has been oil starvation, and it's true he hasn't said he knows why it happened in the first place.
I have no way of knowing if this chap is legit unfortunately, so I am at his mercy. He hasn't started taking things apart yet, so it seems fair that he hasn't diagnosed the cause. I just wanted to see if what he has said rings true before getting to start work.
Do you know where the coolant has been going? Loosing that amount of coolant is quite serious considering you shouldn't loose any from year to year in a perfect system! Add to that the oil in the coolant and white smoke/steam I'd be making a safe assumption the head gasket's gone.
Has he done a sniff test? You really need to get one done to check if your gasket has gone before he takes £1500 off you for a turbo that might go again because of water in your oil.
Has he done a sniff test? You really need to get one done to check if your gasket has gone before he takes £1500 off you for a turbo that might go again because of water in your oil.
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