Turbo failure

[allenmc2311]

Yesterday way home wife's 2012 177 bhp Q5 started to make whirring/hissing noise. When she told me I took it for a drive and the noise could be heard from about 1500 rpm, as the turbo was spinning up.
I had the same thing happen several years ago on a 2003 A4 TDi which turned out to be a split hose. So I assumed it was the same thing. Took the car to dealer this morning. Explained the issue and they said as I thought probably a split hose and to call back in couple of hours. Call back to be told the turbo had failed, thankfully it is under warranty and we were very lucky it didn't total the engine.

The car only has 50,000 and a full Audi service history. We have also had other Audi's and VW's with 100'000+ miles and never had anything like this happen.
So my question is are the newer Audi's more fragile or have we just been unlucky?
If we didn't have a warranty I dread to think what the cost would be!

[allenmc2311]

Garage has confirmed turbo issue is excessive play in the shaft/bearing. This is unusual for a car with only 50,000 mile.
Am I correct in assuming that this is usually caused by either low oil pressure, poor quality oil or contaminated oil?

[Crasher]

How many oil changes has it had and by whom? In VAG Long Life terms it will only have had two and be nearing its third.

[allenmc2311]

Crasher,
According to service history I have its had 3 oil changes at 6049, 33671 & 39051 miles all done by Audi Maidstone. Oil was also changed during service when we purchased it in Feb at approx 47500 miles. It would appear that the car was leased for first 3 years but service records were retained by leasing company. Which accounts for gap between 1st and 2nd oil change.

[Crasher]

It was probably that big (but still within schedule) gap that did it. I get criticised for deriding the long life service intervals as I am “a typical garage owner ripping people off” but I find it less stressful for me nagging people to double up the oil changes than telling them their engine or turbo is ruined and I get it all the time, I have two cars in with engine damage now that I can put down to longlife oil changes.

[allenmc2311]

Thanks Crasher.
As I've said I've owned number of Audi's & VW's all of which I have serviced every year and none had a history with so called long life oil. This is the first time in 38 years of driving I've had car suffer a major failure. All my previous cars have been serviced every year. Once the Q5 is fixed it will be get an oil and filter change every 12 month or 10,000 miles.

[Crasher]

I set them up for 9300 miles which is 15000Km, the standard interval. There is a school of thought which says to still use the LongLife oil because it may be better than normal over the short interval and conversely others speculate that it does not protect as well over the normal interval as it is designed to keep its qualities for twice as long. When I bought my Octavia 12 years ago with a blown engine and turbo (yes, Longlife abuse again, 4 years old and destroyed) I fitted a genuine exchange engine and turbo and it has never had anything but LongLife in and it gets chnaged annually which for me is about 4K miles.

[allenmc2311]

Only thing concerned about now is if any metal fragment from turbo have got into the engine. See picture. Garage has said they will check, but cant see how without removing head!

36061

[Crasher]

They should be able to tell by following the boost line, that picture is the compressor intake and unless it is a huge catastrophic failure, will show you bugger all. The charge air system follows a very long sticky oil stained path and if no flecks of metal are found, it should be OK. I have seen a LOT of big turbo failures and, over the last twenty years or so, I have only known fragments get into the combustion chambers once and that was on a forum members 150 PD TDI right back at the beginning when I joined.

[allenmc2311]

Got the car back today. All seems good. New Turbo, oil/filter changed and oil pressure tested.
What I found most interesting was new turbo came from Audi with a new oil line. New line is a larger diameter.
Does this mean Audi know there is an oil feed issue?

Crasher, thanks again for all the info

[Crasher]

Quite often the oil line is upgraded, this is to cope with the baked on oil accumulated in the line over the long term abuse pushed past their limit longlife service intervals produce. It is a bit like fitting me with larger arteries to cope with the abuse I give them.