BLB turbo fitted Friday & failed in garage. Told the turbo has wrong tuning

[A4_2.0TDI]

Last Wednesday a family friend got in touch about her beloved 2005 A4 2.0TDI SE 140. She had taken it to a garage as it had approx 55mph top speed.
A diagnostics check was performed on the car - the printout of which, for reasons i cannot fathom, she binned!!!
The engine code from the V5 says BLB.
The turbo was already u/s.
Oil pump failure is imminent.
There were additional issues spoken about, of which i have no details, but we can presume relate to the above failings.
A course of action was decided; replace the turbo. A price was given, she took the car away. She tells me on arrival that there was lots of variations on the turbo

i investigate the various turbos on the BLB engine. Searching for a replacement yielded three if i remember correctly. All were visually different.

A call was made to a specialist turbo reconditioning company, "Hi trying to source a turbo for a A4 2Ltdi '05 plate". All i got asked was "What's the engine code mate?" "its BLB", i say. He replied "Yes mate we've got one". Asked about the gasket kit & oil feed pipe.
Paid for turbo & kit, Friday they arrive. The missus & the friend take the turbo and the gasket kit to garage. They passed on the info that they needed to go to Audi for the oil feed pipe.

The afternoon comes with frantic phone calls informing me that the turbo fitted failed immediately, the car was worse than ever, the garage was saying its the turbo at fault, or more precisely, the 'wrong tune'.

The phone is passed to a mechanic at this garage. He said the turbos all look the same but would need to 'tuned' by an Audi dealership, and that there were 9 possible tunes for this turbo on the BLB engine.

Why was it possible to buy one off the shelf then, or if this is the case shouldnt i have had that info divulged to me before purchasing the turbo? I'm used to ford & citroen diesel turbos, they have info plates to allow matching up.

What If the recon turbo failed due to clogged filters, or the strainer was blocked, or the engine not flushed, or some other oversight?

This morning i'm phoning the turbo supplier for advice. Then i hope to find an Audi specialist for an independent perspective. If anyone can recommend on near Peterborough i'd be thankful.

The garage has removed the turbo i bought and sent the original away to do an exchange. I'm going there today to bring the recon turbo back, the supplier is expecting an exchange unit to arrive in 10 days.

Wish me luck & thanks for bearing with the convoluted debrief. Any suggestions would be welcomed.

[adamss24]

Did they check the oil pump ? Usually it's the reason why turbo dies. Also i hope they cleared the intake pipes of any oil/debris because that will hydrolock the engine if it's starts running on oil left in the intake !

[sar02]

When my turbo failed i bought a reconditioned one, the mechanic fitted it and i had to send the old one to the supplier of the recon one, it failed within 2 weeks!, when i contacted them they were most apologetic and offered another recon one, i asked the price of a new one , £120 more, i decided to go for the new and have covered 35k miles on it, most mechanics i have spoken to have all said the same thing, when it comes to turbo,s stay away from reconditioned ones.

[zollaf]

it depends who reconditions the turbo. i only use turbo technics and have had many turbos over the years from them without a single failure. well apart from one where the owner didn't change the oil for 27k and runs veg so it polimerized.

[ukdan]

Stay away from reconditioned turbos.
Mine lasted only 7 days on the first replacement and 14 days on the second till it went again.
Been on a new turbo now for well over a year with no problems.

[adamss24]

As Zollaf said, depends who's doing the turbos and the quality of the rebuild kit. I have fitted refurbished turbo's many, many times, usually a good rebuild will be costly, if you go for cheap rebuilds chances are they will use cheap bearings and seals which might fail soon, however most VNT turbo's will need balancing on a high speed VSR machine, not everyone does that ! If you can afford new then go for it every time !

[ukdan]

Both reconditioned turbos I fitted were from a reputable supplier and both had the balancing print outs which looked ok. No big spikes in the graphs or anything untoward.

[adamss24]

Is the garage competent at all ? I find it hard to believe that 2 turbos went wrong, they do require oiling prior fitting...

[ukdan]

Did them myself and yes they do require oiling prior to running the engine which I did.
Like I said, with a new turbo in it's been fine for over a year now.