Fiesta 1.6 TDCI turbo damaged after major service

Closing

Closing

Closing

Associate
Joined
22 Sep 2015
Posts
331
Hi all,

Forgive me if this comes across a bit wall-of-texty, I know there are a few car nuts amongst us!

I just had my car serviced at a main dealer, major service (Motorcraft 4+). All is well driving it back from the garage until the next afternoon whilst returning from work I suddenly lose power as if the turbo has given up and I can hear a whistling sound. Since servicing it's done all of 10 miles, if that.

Take it straight back to the garage where they take it apart, quickly establish that somehow something has gotten past the air filter and gauze mesh into the turbo compressor and smashed all the blades to pieces. I could see pieces of blade resting in the oil recirculation after passing through the turbo (forgive me if this is not the correct terminology).

The mechanic held up the air box and shook it stating something like 'see there's bits in there', it sounded like there is perhaps the tiniest stone/washer whatever rattling around in there. How could there possibly be a way for anything to pass through a brand new air filter plus the mesh (completely undamaged mesh) and into the compressor?

I ask him this, he answers 'I have no idea how that's happened but we only open the air box we don't go near the turbo or pipework'.

I tell him the car has been fine since I bought it over a year ago, is regularly serviced, just passed it's MOT with no advisories 2 weeks ago (the guy even said it's a really sound runner for a car with 77k/9yrs on the clock).

Basically the garage is not accepting any liability whatsoever and have told me their report deems that they are not at fault but cannot explain what has happened, just that it must be a huge coincidence. Bearing in mind the car is a sound runner, has had a major service every 10K, never had a problem with it, I drive it in with no problems and it blows the turbo a couple miles down the road. They have quoted me £770 for a new turbo and £150 to fit it, I am sure more work is required than this (surely after a turbo has failed shredding pieces of impeller into the engine I presume this should be a hell of a lot more work than a simple off/on job).

Please share any and all advice with me, I am stuffed. Feel like it's an ant versus an elephant.

Thanks all.
 
Motors is --> that way :D
A friendly Don will be along any minute and move to the correct forum for you.

Anyway, I would speak to the CAB and see what the precedent is in cases like this.
 
Last edited:
You pretty much have to take the air intake pipe off to the turbo to access the oil filter, so there is a chance something has got in there while the pipe was off. Turbos are also common on these for failure, they fail from oil starvation problems, sludge/gunk in the oil feed and return pipes mainly. It's possible it was starting to fail, and the lack of oil pressure for a brief moment after the oil change could have finished it off.

It's a hard call really, there's no proof either way of what's happened. I'll be surprised if the garage pay anything, or if you have any way of getting them to pay.
 
Must admit I find it difficult to see a way they will accept any liability as per above.

Whilst I know it isn't a good news story, it's genuinely possible it could just be a (crap) coincidence as I don't really see how they would introduce something into the intake.

The only way to tell more would be to find the offending material, which is....unlikely I guess
 
I know of turbo failures within 30k miles on religiously serviced vehicles and the same failure after 300k following the same schedule.

Sounds like bad luck and coincide tbh, I doubt you'll get far trying to prove otherwise. :/
 
Correct this was the compressor side, the first row of impellers look as though something has flown through and snapped each blade down to about half way. I've never seen damage like it.

If you Google images 'turbo impeller damage' you'll see plenty of damaged turbo's but all look similar as if something has smashed into the blades but repeatedly bounced off them, grinding them down or bending them over. This makes sense as I find it hard to believe anything could pass the impeller whilst it's spinning at 200,000 RPM.

Looks like whatever has caused this damage was something weighty, a nut or screw, something that could sheer every blade off and pass through without so much as scratching the blades or housing...

Baffled, as are the mechanics (or so they say they are).
 
Turbos can just go, it's always a risk with them. I once had an Audi A3 and the turbo exploded within 2 months. A collegue bought a brand new BWM and his exploded within 2 weeks.

I don't see how something could have got in through the air intake. Unless they were running it with no filter installed. Or they dropped something in to it...
 
Last edited:
My friend had a focus tdci lunch its turbo, then it lunched the second one on the way home from Lancaster. Blades were massively damaged as the nut on the end of the turbine wheel came off and caused quite a mess.

http://singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/anyone-else-had-problems-with-a-16hdi-engine

For example. I'd say it was most likely just coincidence.




Even after all the above has been carried out we cannot guarantee all carbon/oil sludge will be removed and you could still suffer a premature turbo failure. In the event of premature failure it is common for the impeller/nose nut to "come off", this is a consequence of a lubrication/turbine shaft failure & NOT a cause of turbo failure.
Click to expand...
See here http://www.berlingoforum.co.uk/thread-1149-post-9343.html#pid9343

Edit : If the turbo has failed due to oil way issues, then the bill for sorting it should be a lot more than £150 labour I'd have thought. It's a hell of a job to get them cleaned to where they may be 'right' again. The service may have moved some of the lumps of sludge around enough to block the filter pre turbo which would cause the kind of failure it sounds like you've seen.
 
Last edited:
Nut is still on the turbo Mike and Danza, it's not oil related, turbo has failed due to foreign object ingestion - the compressor blades are destroyed, but the mechanical action is still buttery smooth, no smoke either.

No way for anything sizeable enough to do damage to the turbo through the air filter or filter gauze mesh therefore I can only assume that a mechanic has taken the hosing off the turbo compressor to make it easier for them to access the oil filter and at some point something has fallen into the turbo compressor or hosing. He's connected it back up, I've driven off and a few miles down the road the turbo has gone bang.

I can't see any other explanation. How does anything get past a brand new air filter + fine gauze mesh? The mechanic certainly couldn't answer that, 'I have no idea how that'd happen, it's a mystery'.
 
Closing said:
Nut is still on the turbo Mike and Danza, it's not oil related, turbo has failed due to foreign object ingestion - the compressor blades are destroyed, but the mechanical action is still buttery smooth, no smoke either.

No way for anything sizeable enough to do damage to the turbo through the air filter or filter gauze mesh therefore I can only assume that a mechanic has taken the hosing off the turbo compressor to make it easier for them to access the oil filter and at some point something has fallen into the turbo compressor or hosing. He's connected it back up, I've driven off and a few miles down the road the turbo has gone bang.

I can't see any other explanation. How does anything get past a brand new air filter + fine gauze mesh? The mechanic certainly couldn't answer that, 'I have no idea how that'd happen, it's a mystery'.
Click to expand...

Have the blades destroyed themselves on the turbine housing?

Edit : The nut doesn't necessarily have to of come off for it to be sludge issues.
 
Last edited:
-Mike- said:
Have the blades destroyed themselves on the turbine housing?

Edit : The nut doesn't necessarily have to of come off for it to be sludge issues.
Click to expand...

The blades aren't touching the turbine housing, there is no scoring as far as I can see, it all looks pretty top notch apart from the damage to be honest. Looks like something must have gone through with some real force as there isn't even any wear on the blades where an object would bounce off the turbines and get sucked back onto them wearing them down. Just straight through.

Could the blades themselves just snap off, like all of them, at the same time, with no collision?
 
Closing said:
The blades aren't touching the turbine housing, there is no scoring as far as I can see, it all looks pretty top notch apart from the damage to be honest. Looks like something must have gone through with some real force as there isn't even any wear on the blades where an object would bounce off the turbines and get sucked back onto them wearing them down. Just straight through.

Could the blades themselves just snap off, like all of them, at the same time, with no collision?
Click to expand...

Did you feel for play in the bearing yourself? or Did you just twiddle it and think it still spins so no problem. You want to look for play in the shaft in an up/down side to side motion. Really need to see some photos :)
 
-Mike- said:
Did you feel for play in the bearing yourself? or Did you just twiddle it and think it still spins so no problem. You want to look for play in the shaft in an up/down side to side motion. Really need to see some photos :)
Click to expand...

To be fair I did just spin it around and it felt smooth but I am no mechanic.

I will definitely look for that and I'll have photo's up asap, thanks.
 
It does sound like you're adding 2 + 2 and getting 5 - foreign object debris is an unlikely scenario (for reasons you explain yourself), but you've decided that its definitely what's happened...
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom