Stephanie Turner

Sounds like foreign particle to me. It is not insulting, this type of damage happens all the time. It is considered a user induced failure, usually unknowingly though. It is not a manufacturing defect. It could be anything from a piston ring to the internal pieces on some part failed. Smaller particles can find their way thru an intercooler, so it could even be something that the air filter is letting thru. It may not have been an ongoing thing either, hence the current turbo is fine. Check the intercooler or throttle inlet tubing for damage or debris.

Turbos fail for all sorts of reasons. No turbo is bullet proof. If you had a china charger on it, I am sure it would have had the same demise. You can try going over ATP's head, but they pretty much have the final say. Good luck!
Stephanie

Underway

Thanks, I'll look at the IC and TB when I pull the header tomorrow. As for failed parts... Compression is good all the way across and the motor runs strong as heck (for an NA 1.6) you make me want to tear it down again just to make sure.

Would it be possible to send this unit to Begi? Kind of a second opinion type thing from another turbo specialist?

Underway

I can't sleep so I'm looking at everything again. I have a question for those with some technical knowledge; Do ceramic coatings break down over time?

Here's a theory...the manifold on this car is from one of the original FM kits, probably purchased in the early 90's. From what I can tell, FM didn't originally offer ceramic coatings as an option. this manifold does have a nice white ceramic coating inside of it. Is it possible, over time and abuse, for this coating to become a powder? I know sand tore up helo rotor blades bad, I can't imagine what ceramic dust would do. There are no large areas of coating missing but i can see hairline cracks in it.

Is it possible the ancient coating is giving way and that is the "foreign object"?

Hot_Wheels

iTrader: (12)

im no expert but i believe i heard that the ceramic can destroy a turbo, ill leave it to the experts. ive been following this post since the begining, you pay a premium price for a good turbo that you can get a knock off for a 1/4 of the price. you think with the competition they would atleast stand behind there products a little better.

turotufas

iTrader: (7)

Bagels ******' suck.

Why the hell didn't my FM turbo come with a restrictor this is BS. After I fouled the threads on that one I had a hydraulics shop make me a new one and that bitch is unrestricted too. Not cool.

y8s

iTrader: (8)

Braineack's car ate one of his throttle body screws and pooped it out through the turbine... **** happens.

Braineack

iTrader: (62)

and the turbo still worked...just not well because it was making slight contact.

sixshooter

iTrader: (12)

If any of that ceramic coating is flaking off, there is a good chance you have found your culprit. Yes, it could damage the turbine blades.

I don't think I would ever put any kind of coating on the inside of a manifold.

One of my buddies just had to replace his CHRA because two rear cylinders had some detonation and lost the ground straps off of the spark plugs. Those two little pieces ate the **** out of his turbine blades. You would think that they would just go through and maybe hit one blade and be done, but it doesn't work that way.

Stephanie Turner

Compression will only tell you so much. You really should do a leak down test before you say for sure the motor is okay.

I could tell you what ATP told you. Probably not even that much. They have the ability to tear into the CHRA to see if the fault lies there, we do not. ATP knows their stuff. I have never found them to be wrong, or not have iron clad proof.
Stephanie

Underway

Thanks for all your inputs. My wife basically pulled the leash in about taking on Honeywell and she's totally right.

The AD is being really good to me, he's going to "cost" me the the CHRA and he's going to try machining the "deposits" out of the housing to see if it is salvageable. All without charging me labor. I have no issues at all with them, they've been great and seem to be going out of their way to make up for Garretts short falls.

It does really bother me that will have spent enough to buy 4 china chargers. I would think with all the knock offs out there Garrett would be willing to do more to keep a customer willing to spend the money they ask. If I had any idea this would be my story I would have risked it on a cheapo and replaced it once happily knowing I had still saved almost half of this total bill.

I'll be taking the remaining time to re-do a botched oil pan seal. Anyone ever do this successfully in the car using the tilt motor method? I really don't want to pull the motor again, my apartment complex has decided to do "inspections" next week and I'm worried about having the car apart, we aren't even supposed to do oil changes here.

On the other hand, the mother in law brought back some smoked salmon from her latest adventure...Bagels and Locks..MMMMM.

turbotyla

iTrader: (2)

support engine with engine puller and drop the subframe enouph to get the oil pan off. Thats what i did.

Underway

Thanks, I would have figured that would be more work then pulling the engine but I'll definitely look into it.

codrus

I've done both (pulled motor once, pulled oil pan once). If I had to do it again, I'd pull the motor.

--Ian

Underway

Good to know, Thanks!

Underway

I finally got my turbo back! Three friggin months later!!! The AD was really good to me, only charged me parts for the CHRA and just milled the excess deposited material out of the housing.

Bottom line I've now spent $1400 for this turbo and it's only been in my hands for about 5 days out of the last three months.

I could have bought 4-5 Chinachargers for the same amount, received the same level of care from the MANUFACTURER and I wouldn't have had to wait three months for a new one.

Your call, I just don't see how any company can have this type of business model and the level of competion and plan to stay in business very much longer.

Personally, I would never recommend Garrett to anyone, the extra money I paid for the name has got me nothing but that...a name on my housing.

18psi

iTrader: (76)

Sucks man. Did you install it already?

One of the biggest things that steered me towards a chinacharger (aside from price) is the fact that if something goes wrong, the a brand name company like Garrett will give 0% of a **** and make you buy another one. 5 chinachargers would have to fail on me to add up to the price of a brand name unit.

Savington

iTrader: (31)

The kind of business model where they won't replace turbos that ingested foreign objects?

I was pretty nice about it on M.net but now you're just acting like a child, dude. It's been explained over and over, and all you do is talk about theory and possibilities of failures. Can you reasonably come up with an explanation for what failed on your turbo to produce your symptoms and failure mode?

-No shaft play
-No shaft bent
-Turbine wheel contacted the housing in one small area

So either
-The housing wasn't clocked correctly, causing it to touch the wheel and cause the damage - it sounds like you clocked the housing correctly, but this will cause your failure and it wouldn't be Garrett's fault. OR
-Your turbo ingested something from the motor - obviously not Garrett's fault

You have absolutely no evidence of any issue with the turbo beyond what would be caused by user error (foreign object ingestion) - you even admitted that you have ceramic coating on the inside of the manifold, and the coating has hairline fractures in it. Despite this, you continue to insist that Garretts fail all the time, and that your failure obviously constitutes a widespread manufacturing or design flaw on Garrett's part, and they should compensate you for it - despite a total absence of other collaborative stories.

Do you understand how ridiculous this sounds? I don't mean to offend you (even though I probably have) but I do feel like you need a bit of a reality check.

chicksdigmiatas

iTrader: (11)

This is why I am to afraid to buy a garrett. Paying 1000 dollars just to watch it go up in flames because my engine pukes up something makes me cringe.

y8s

iTrader: (8)

no it's the business model where one guy out of thousands gets screwed and the rest are super happy with a quality product. seems unsustainable doesn't it?

dustinb

Glad to hear you got it straightened out. I'm glad I went with a China charger.

Chinese:


North America: