Volvo turbo problem....

not sure where to put this post as its about a car.......

One of the people in my work has a 2006 Volvo S40 1.6D, with about 97,000 miles on the clock, and it keeps breaking turbos, and he says hes been told things like broken fan blades and bearings.

It has blown 4 turbos and is getting a 5th soon, they are only lasting about 1000miles each. The garage looking at it have no idea why its breaking them.

Any ideas?

Oil supply. I'm not sure if the Volvo is the same turbo as the Peugeot, but some of them have a small oil filter in the line near the turbo, similar to those found on the outlet of a bike petrol out-take.

These can collapse and restrict flow. Peugeot actuall remove it completely when they work on a turbo and its no longer shown in their parts fiches.

The bearings are oil fed on car turbos and if the bearings keep breaking then the likely suspect is the oil feed. If the bearing collapses, the fan, which could be spinning at up to 200,000 rpm, then self destructs as the now wobbly bearing allows it to hit the inside of the casing.

That'd be my guess. Time to check the oil pressure to the turbo.

C

fantastic! he shall be informed of this tomorrow,

cheers!

Yep turbos spin mighty fast. On start up give it 10 seconds or so for the oil pressure to build before revving. And when you stop, again leave the engine idling for 10 or so seconds to let the turbo slow right down, or it could be spinning at silly speeds with no oil pressure.

Kawasaki used to recommend a 30 second spin down time before switching off the engine on the GPz750 Turbo E1 and E2 models. Ford said similar about the Mk3 Escort Turbo as well.

Originally Posted by Berlin

Oil supply. I'm not sure if the Volvo is the same turbo as the Peugeot

It probably will do. I think it's a 1.6 TDCi out of a Focus, and I think that's a 1.6 HDi out of a Peugeot.

Agreed, it sounds like an oil feed problem. Just to be be a pedant. Modern turbos don't require much in the way of oil pressure, but do require flow both in and out.
All of the company turbo diesels are on 5 minute timers to spin the turbos down or secondary pressurised oil supply and we have had zero problems since their implementation.

Check the air hose to the turbo is in good nick, it's not unknown for debris from this to damage vanes. But the bearing sounds deffo like an oil flow problem.