Protecting a tiny turbo engine
Discussion
I bought a Suzuki Baleno last year and it has a tiny 1 litre turbocharged engine. I like the car that much that I'm planning on keeping it long after the warranty expires. With that being said, I am slightly paranoid about the tiny little blown 3-pot and how long it'll last. I'm currently changing the oil every 4500 miles (service interval is 9k) and usually leave it idling for a minute or two before I shut it off if I've been on a long journey.
My question is, is there anything else I should be doing to look after the engine? Or should my regime of excessively regular oil changes and allowing the turbo to cool before I turn it off be enough?
My question is, is there anything else I should be doing to look after the engine? Or should my regime of excessively regular oil changes and allowing the turbo to cool before I turn it off be enough?
Letting a turbocharged engine idle after a drive is usually a pointless waste of fuel. Unless you’re driving it hard and then suddenly stop, you’re doing no more than throwing pounds out the exhaust. Just make sure the last minute of driving is gentle and it’ll be fine. At least you’ve cooling air moving through the engine compartment when the car is being driven.
Idle before shut down was recommended back in the mid-80s, I think, in the early days of turbo GTis etc. Things have moved on a long way since then.
Idle before shut down was recommended back in the mid-80s, I think, in the early days of turbo GTis etc. Things have moved on a long way since then.
Tony1963 said:
Letting a turbocharged engine idle after a drive is usually a pointless waste of fuel.
Isn't it polite to give the turbo a chance to cool down before you cut off the cooling oil? Modern synthetics are more tolerant of being cooked but that's no reason to give it a harder time than necessary.GreenV8S said:
Isn't it polite to give the turbo a chance to cool down before you cut off the cooling oil? Modern synthetics are more tolerant of being cooked but that's no reason to give it a harder time than necessary.
Modern turbo cars have for a very long time usually been fitted with a water cooling circuit that runs after the ignition has been turned off. This was astandard on my previous 16 year old Seat Cupra.oilslick said:
I bought a Suzuki Baleno last year and it has a tiny 1 litre turbocharged engine. I like the car that much that I'm planning on keeping it long after the warranty expires. With that being said, I am slightly paranoid about the tiny little blown 3-pot and how long it'll last. I'm currently changing the oil every 4500 miles (service interval is 9k) and usually leave it idling for a minute or two before I shut it off if I've been on a long journey.
My question is, is there anything else I should be doing to look after the engine? Or should my regime of excessively regular oil changes and allowing the turbo to cool before I turn it off be enough?
Currently have a 1.0 Baleno sitting in the snow. Lovely car, lovely. :-)My question is, is there anything else I should be doing to look after the engine? Or should my regime of excessively regular oil changes and allowing the turbo to cool before I turn it off be enough?
Can't think of anything else you should do. Interim oil changes are recommended for cars with lots of short journeys, dusty environments, and multiple starts.
BoosterJet 1.0 has direct injection to the cylinders, as opposed to injected into the flow port. Suzuki recommend using fuel additives to keep the injectors clean for some markets, noticably India, where fuel quality is variable. In the UK there's almost certainly no need, but you could run a tank of premium fuel through it once a month. I use Shell V-Power, which is either made from unicorn droppings or a complete waste of money, but I can tell the difference between it and Sainsburies/Tesco economy dingo-wee in third gear acceleration. (But not much.)
Millions of BoosterJets have been sold worldwide, there doesn't seem to be any recurring problems with the engine or fuelling. Turbo is an IHT fixed vane with a waste-gate, I've not seen any reports of problems with it.
Honest John, the motoring 'guru' was one of the chief proponents of 'idle your turbo' but presuming you're not doing 70 MPH on the final approach to your home, the chances are that the turbo oil feed is below critical temp for oil carbonisation anyway. The BoosterJet doesn't have an oil temp. sensor, so I'm unable to verify any of this with an OBD reader.
The Team-BHP forum in India is a good place for long-term reviews.
https://www.team-bhp.com/forum/official-new-car-re...
Edited by Slushbox on Thursday 31st January 09:55
Car manufactureras perform what's called a heat soak back test on every new model.
They load their prototype car with four people and a trailer and drive hard up a mountain.
Arriving on top, they park the car, shut down the engine and cover the bonnet with a blanket in order to prevent cooling. They then monitor the engine temperature, measured at several locations, including turbo bearings. If the temp goes higher than turbo manufacturer spec, the test is a fail and something must be done (I.e. Turbo liquid cooling housing).
PSA asked a turbo manufacturer to run severized tests in order to sort defective components during manufacturing. Journal bearings would be run without oil flow after the initial lubrication and no tests would destroy that bearing in a reasonable time.
Turbos ar robust pieces of engineering and there is no need to behave differently compared to naturally aspirated engine.
They load their prototype car with four people and a trailer and drive hard up a mountain.
Arriving on top, they park the car, shut down the engine and cover the bonnet with a blanket in order to prevent cooling. They then monitor the engine temperature, measured at several locations, including turbo bearings. If the temp goes higher than turbo manufacturer spec, the test is a fail and something must be done (I.e. Turbo liquid cooling housing).
PSA asked a turbo manufacturer to run severized tests in order to sort defective components during manufacturing. Journal bearings would be run without oil flow after the initial lubrication and no tests would destroy that bearing in a reasonable time.
Turbos ar robust pieces of engineering and there is no need to behave differently compared to naturally aspirated engine.
Edited by e635815 on Thursday 31st January 11:39
Slushbox said:
Currently have a 1.0 Baleno sitting in the snow. Lovely car, lovely. :-)
Can't think of anything else you should do. Interim oil changes are recommended for cars with lots of short journeys, dusty environments, and multiple starts.
BoosterJet 1.0 has direct injection to the cylinders, as opposed to injected into the flow port. Suzuki recommend using fuel additives to keep the injectors clean for some markets, noticably India, where fuel quality is variable. In the UK there's almost certainly no need, but you could run a tank of premium fuel through it once a month. I use Shell V-Power, which is either made from unicorn droppings or a complete waste of money, but I can tell the difference between it and Sainsburies/Tesco economy dingo-wee in third gear acceleration. (But not much.)
Millions of BoosterJets have been sold worldwide, there doesn't seem to be any recurring problems with the engine or fuelling. Turbo is an IHT fixed vane with a waste-gate, I've not seen any reports of problems with it.
Honest John, the motoring 'guru' was one of the chief proponents of 'idle your turbo' but presuming you're not doing 70 MPH on the final approach to your home, the chances are that the turbo oil feed is below critical temp for oil carbonisation anyway. The BoosterJet doesn't have an oil temp. sensor, so I'm unable to verify any of this with an OBD reader.
The Team-BHP forum in India is a good place for long-term reviews.
https://www.team-bhp.com/forum/official-new-car-re...
Thanks for the Baleno-specific info. I usually stick whatever flavour of premium fuel in it so no worries there. Looks like I have a 202 page thread to read Can't think of anything else you should do. Interim oil changes are recommended for cars with lots of short journeys, dusty environments, and multiple starts.
BoosterJet 1.0 has direct injection to the cylinders, as opposed to injected into the flow port. Suzuki recommend using fuel additives to keep the injectors clean for some markets, noticably India, where fuel quality is variable. In the UK there's almost certainly no need, but you could run a tank of premium fuel through it once a month. I use Shell V-Power, which is either made from unicorn droppings or a complete waste of money, but I can tell the difference between it and Sainsburies/Tesco economy dingo-wee in third gear acceleration. (But not much.)
Millions of BoosterJets have been sold worldwide, there doesn't seem to be any recurring problems with the engine or fuelling. Turbo is an IHT fixed vane with a waste-gate, I've not seen any reports of problems with it.
Honest John, the motoring 'guru' was one of the chief proponents of 'idle your turbo' but presuming you're not doing 70 MPH on the final approach to your home, the chances are that the turbo oil feed is below critical temp for oil carbonisation anyway. The BoosterJet doesn't have an oil temp. sensor, so I'm unable to verify any of this with an OBD reader.
The Team-BHP forum in India is a good place for long-term reviews.
https://www.team-bhp.com/forum/official-new-car-re...
Edited by Slushbox on Thursday 31st January 09:55
Tony1963 said:
Letting a turbocharged engine idle after a drive is usually a pointless waste of fuel. Unless you’re driving it hard and then suddenly stop, you’re doing no more than throwing pounds out the exhaust. Just make sure the last minute of driving is gentle and it’ll be fine. At least you’ve cooling air moving through the engine compartment when the car is being driven.
Idle before shut down was recommended back in the mid-80s, I think, in the early days of turbo GTis etc. Things have moved on a long way since then.
+1 Idle before shut down was recommended back in the mid-80s, I think, in the early days of turbo GTis etc. Things have moved on a long way since then.
I went back to the Honest John thread, but it's full of wibble and snarks, so won't bother quoting it.
Suzuki themselves don't offer an advice on 'letting the turbo cool down' but on my BoosterJet, I run the thing carefully until the water temp gauge is up to temperature. This doesn't reflect oil temperature, of course.
I do let the engine idle for a bit coming off the motorway into a service area, but other than that don't bother.
There's a local turbo mechanic I use who says most of the turbo problems they see are on cars that have been 'babied', driven carefully to the point where wastegate actuators become sticky, piston rings don't bed into the cylinder walls, and the oil never gets hot enough to evaporate winter condensation. Short cold start/stop journeys in 'shopping cars' seems to cause more problems than anything else.
BoosterJet 1.0 has a soft limiter at about 5200 rpm, so I'll occasionally take the car up to that in third, where its er, safe and legal to do so. The turbo also has a mild overboost feature for more torque at lower RPM.
I've got a Pela oil pump for 'topside' interim oil changes, the BoosterJet 1.0 has a very small bore dipstick tube, so the Pela tubes don't fit. Local indy will drain and refill for £40. Last main dealer full service was £140 at 9000 miles.
My d4d avensis has instructions on the back of the sun visor that say after highway driving to allow between 60 to 180 seconds idle time. If I remember I’ll photograph it later.
Sometimes I think there isn’t enough advice given out by manufacturers on how to really look after a car. Look at the jaguar dpf thread as one example, cool down and warm up, 20k plus oil change. It’s almost like they are aiming the car to be binned or replaced after 6 or 7 years.
Sometimes I think there isn’t enough advice given out by manufacturers on how to really look after a car. Look at the jaguar dpf thread as one example, cool down and warm up, 20k plus oil change. It’s almost like they are aiming the car to be binned or replaced after 6 or 7 years.
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