Club 80-90 Forums

In 2010 I had a new engine (a Vege rebuild of my old 1.6 TD) fitted by my local VW garage. It was a very thorough job, the total bill was £3,500. I hoped it would give our van a completely new lease of life. How wrong I was!

Almost first time out following the rebuild the gearbox died. We were very suspicious that the failure was in some way connected to the engine work, or at least that the gearbox should have been identified as dodgy before we'd spent so much on the rebuild. However, we were assured it was a coincidence - just bad luck - so we had the gearbox rebuilt too. We changed garages in the process (having lost confidence in the first one, a small, local VW specialist) and soon another grand was down the drain.

All was well for about 8 months but then we had a major oil leak. It turned out that the original garage had failed to replace a vital clip on the oil pipe, which had then vibrated itself to destruction. The inconvenience was considerable but the repair relatively cheap, or so it seemed.

Now, two years on from the original rebuild, and with less than 5000 miles under our belts, the engine is is smoking badly, blue smoke. The new garage think the turbo was damaged by the oil leak and may fail at any time - they say we should consider replacing it, even though it's less than two years old! I'm convinced that the new engine has always been too smokey, although once warmed up it runs cleaner, but a thin veil of blue smoke has always followed us. However, it's clearly got worse recently.

So what to do? We were about to go on our main holiday of the year next week. Should we risk taking the van? What's the worst that can happen? What should we do about investigation/repair? I don't trust any garages after the experience of the last two years and frankly I'm close to despair.

Any help advice greatly appreciated.

Cheers

Malc

Hi Malc, there is a very strong chance the massive oil loss did damage the turbo, it does happen when oil pressure is lost when a leak happens, have you been back to the first garage (rebuild garage) and explained to them that your worried about the "blue haze" that follows you?

If it was me i dont think id wanna drive it to far, if the turbo lets rip it could furb your engine up big time

Thanks for the advice. We're off to Pembrokeshire so it's a 300+ mile trip each way - so plenty of time for something to go wrong. And it would ruin the holiday anyway if I was worried about the van failing the whole time. Its just so frustrating. We've spent a large chunk of our life's savings on this van - it had always been a dream of ours to have one - but it's just been a complete disaster from start to finish.

I guess I should bite the bullet and go back to the original garage, as you say. However, from experience I'd reckon they'll just deny all responsibility.

If the turbo were to fail, what could it do to the engine?

painterspal wrote:Thanks for the advice. We're off to Pembrokeshire so it's a 300+ mile trip each way - so plenty of time for something to go wrong. And it would ruin the holiday anyway if I was worried about the van failing the whole time. Its just so frustrating. We've spent a large chunk of our life's savings on this van - it had always been a dream of ours to have one - but it's just been a complete disaster from start to finish.

I guess I should bite the bullet and go back to the original garage, as you say. However, from experience I'd reckon they'll just deny all responsibility.

If the turbo were to fail, what could it do to the engine?

hmm not good

If the Turbo failed it could destroy the engine, worse case (that ive seen) the impellor has broken up and been sucked into the combustion chamber, once there its embedded itself in the piston crown and head, see pic below

and the head


best case the seals fail and it fills the road with smoke, but then it could run on its own oil and do as the top pic shows

Crikey, that's terrible. Thanks for the advice. The van's going nowhere - except back to the garage again, I guess.

I had a dodgy turbo I ran it for a few hundred in the state you describe. Really bad under load and start-up but the oil vaporised at cruising speeds, hit a hill and it would start creating that oily blue haze. I kept an eye on the oil usage and just kept it going til I could afford a new turbo. if the garage didnt secure the turbo oil feed pipe they are without a doubt at fault, here is a pipe supplied by brickwerks that it sounds like the one your talking about. The fitting instructions make a point of securing it to the water housing to prevent what I think you are syaing has happened.

http://www.brickwerks.co.uk/component/c ... article/26" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;