Turbocharging

[WhiteCrane]

General questions about turbochargers. I'm talking about stock turbos, not HUGE after market turbos. Do they cause maintenance issues in a vehicles old age? Do turbos themselves break around 100k? I've heard its not uncommon for turbos to stop working or leak despite proper maintenance once the car is old. And that if you are buying a car for longevity, to always go naturally aspirated. Any truth to this?

I am contemplating buying an old Saab 9-3 2.0 turbo. Always been a Saab fan. I know their drive trains are solid, but turbos worry me.

[JamesNoBrakes]

Originally Posted by WhiteCrane

General questions about turbochargers. I'm talking about stock turbos, not HUGE after market turbos. Do they cause maintenance issues in a vehicles old age? Do turbos themselves break around 100k? I've heard its not uncommon for turbos to stop working or leak despite proper maintenance once the car is old. And that if you are buying a car for longevity, to always go naturally aspirated. Any truth to this?

I am contemplating buying an old Saab 9-3 2.0 turbo. Always been a Saab fan. I know their drive trains are solid, but turbos worry me.

Newer turbo systems are pretty damn good. I ran 135K on my subaru at stage 2 (higher boost pressure/turbo rpm/temp) and didn't have any problems. On any modern decently designed car there is going to be an intercooler and the engine components will be designed to take the additional heat of the induction air. My turbo was oil and water cooled, and when you turned off the car the coolant would evaporate, gasses would get drawn above, which would suck more coolant into the turbo from below, and due to the fact that the coolant would not be rapidly cooling off at that point, it allowed for a gradual cool down, much like a "turbo timer" would, although as a rule I still wouldn't drive "all out" right before shutting it off.

Realize a few things though, older turbo cars can be a headache and pain, with excessive lag, poor cooling and sometimes no intercooler (causing excessive wear and heat soak), and when that turbo "goes" in the most extreme case it can grenade the compressor and send metal chunks into the engine and kill it very quickly. Not very common on any modern car, but if your talking old and tired, that may be it. Usually a way to tell this is based on how much oil the thing eats, as the more oil it uses usually the more worn down the turbo is and sometimes finding oil in the intercooler is another way, but it's not like you check that often. It's also nice if you have a car with a boost gauge where you can see if it's making the proper boost, otherwise sometimes you are losing some to worn components and hose-leaks.

I wouldn't say a NA car is necessarily any better for longevity when compared with an equally well-designed turbo car, but there have been some crappy ones in the past. Saab sold the subaru impreza wrx as the saab aero-something-9-or-other, don't remember which one it was. You might have an old NA car about to explode it's transmission or have a head-gasket failure, or the end-game timing belt. Remember that some turbos can even be rebuilt, or you can pick up an OEM style with little use for cheap from people that have upgraded. May be worth it if you plan to keep the vehicle.

[WhiteCrane]

excellent reply. Thank you.

Subaru built the Saab 9-2x. "Aero" would have meant some sport package of some sorts.

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[JamesNoBrakes]

Originally Posted by WhiteCrane

excellent reply. Thank you.

Subaru built the Saab 9-2x. "Aero" would have meant some sport package of some sorts.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I777 using Tapatalk

Fuji Heavy Industries is who built the car and it was built in Japan (as all WRXs are).

[LOWDOWN]

I'm the original owner of an '87 Buick Regal T-Type Turbo ("undercover" Grand National...), about 85,000 miles, engine AND turbo never apart and fully functioning. As a long-term "survival" method, NEVER shut the engine off immediately following a high-boost drive...let it idle and cool to normal op. temps BEFORE shutting it off. Otherwise, trapped oil in the turbo bearing area (hi-heat) may "coke" and shorten the bearing life...(not as crucial with water-cooled turbo systems, but still worth consideration).

Also, oil changes at shorter intervals are highly suggested, particularly if you often "drive it like you stole it..."

[WhiteCrane]

Originally Posted by JamesNoBrakes

Fuji Heavy Industries is who built the car and it was built in Japan (as all WRXs are).

Yes, I remember reading that. I guess Subaru lacks production to build them in-house.

Originally Posted by LOWDOWN

I'm the original owner of an '87 Buick Regal T-Type Turbo ("undercover" Grand National...), about 85,000 miles, engine AND turbo never apart and fully functioning. As a long-term "survival" method, NEVER shut the engine off immediately following a high-boost drive...let it idle and cool to normal op. temps BEFORE shutting it off. Otherwise, trapped oil in the turbo bearing area (hi-heat) may "coke" and shorten the bearing life...(not as crucial with water-cooled turbo systems, but still worth consideration).

Also, oil changes at shorter intervals are highly suggested, particularly if you often "drive it like you stole it..."

Thanks for the input. Not looking to hot-rod in the thing, I just think SAAB is an excellent luxary buy for the price. They depreciate so quickly, but they are very sturdy cars.


I know I should probably find a SAAB forum, but most of them are foreign and camaro5 has always been a great place to me in the past. (I have barely even gotten any hate here for owning a Rustang)

[scrming]

Love my ECOBOOST! LOL!

Small, water cooled twin turbos... no lag, power comes on incredibly smooth. Water cooling help prevent the "coking" that LOWDOWN mentioned... While I take LOWDOWN's advice and always let the turbos cool down a bit for turning the Flex off, Ford knows that your typical soccer mom is not going to to that! LOL!

Of course there was that whole torture testing thing Ford did with the EcoBoost... I never really watched the different segments... After almost 17,000 miles and numerous passes at the track, I am still very impressed with this motor!

Skip the Saab... stick with the Blue Oval! Think SHO! LOL!

[JamesNoBrakes]

Originally Posted by WhiteCrane

Yes, I remember reading that. I guess Subaru lacks production to build them in-house.

FJI is "in house", it's the bigger corp that owns Subaru. In Japan you'd be surprised what some of their "car companies" make, tractors, planes, TVs, etc, and this is the reason. The subarus also use things like mitsubishi turbochargers and other parts depending on the model sometimes. I do like the fact that they've kept the WRX models built in japan. Not that I don't trust the american plant (drove some cars made there and they were fine), but I think it's nice to try and "stick to what works" as long as practical in that respect. The only big error they made was the 2008 model, which was simply known as the Impreza GT in Japan. It was NOT a WRX model, but they imported it and slapped the WRX name on it, despite having a de-tuned suspension and same power/torque compared to the previous year model. I think the following year they offered that car in it's true "GT" form in the US and re-did the WRX to it's current power level, then in 2011 they did the "widebody" WRX which has been very sucessful. They tend to have a habit/track record of not offering the same features on the US models as the Japan ones from time to time.

But this is where you see the more developed turbo technology. As in the above post, I wouldn't drive a turbo car hard right before shutting it off, and usually it's kind of difficult to do this, but the older the car is the more critical it is. Also I tended to not push my car very hard on the hottest days. Whenever I stopped I could see the hood scoop act in reverse and hot air would start streaming out of the hood from below. It's kind of designed to do all of these things, but it takes you back a little at first. Or after sitting around for a while on a very hot day you don't try to do a full-power takeoff before driving around for a little bit to get rid of any possible heat-soak. Again, the newer the car, the less the issue. It's just good to keep it on the back of your mind. Some people with autos (of the wrx) had terrible times with the turbo-lag due to the gear ratio. If you are buying a turbo car with older auto-trans technology it's may not be worth it. It wasn't meant to be used with an auto really and it's kind of an afterthought (4spd). I guess a lot of people would get caught with excessive lag on mountain roads when it would downshift to 2nd, but not first, and it would have a hell of a time getting back up. It made the 0-60 times MUCH greater and just didn't have the gear capability. I would accelerate pretty reliably from about 1800rpm and in 2nd from a bit lower, but I also had upgraded parts/EM (stock turbo though). Never had those problems, but the lag started to get pretty noticable when I had the AC on. Maybe make sure to try the turbo car with the AC running full blast to see how it accelerates. Once the turbo is kicking it's fine, but it makes that threshold higher than it would be. I also live at high altitude, so this was never a problem when I'd drop down into the low-elevation valley, AC or not. I also had the tiny 2.0L engine (but modern design and mods again).