Turbo heat

[boof]

This came up on here recently and I'll say the same now as I said then (which is very much against the grain) - every engine builder / performance specialist I've spoken to about my (now previous) performance turbo cars have guffawed at the ideas of turbo timers and letting turbos cool in this age of water cooling and better oils. The bi-turbo unit in the a6 certainly has a water cooling element - not sure about the 2.0's but I'd imagine they do.

It absolutely does no harm to let your car idle to 'cool down' but in my opinion we're long past the days where this should be a concern.

Regarding the failure rate of modern turbos I think this can be more down to :

- The fact there are in general a far, far higher proportion of cars on the road with turbos now. Turbos will fail so by that token we'll hear about it more.

- Extended / 'long life' official oil service intervals. That's a whole different subject in itself..

I wouldn't worry about it at all. I've owned a half dozen turbo cars over the years and never had the sniff of an issue. I don't personally know of anyone who ever has either - at least in unfettled form.

Regardless of if it's technically necessary I also think if you look at your average drivers journey it would be reasonably rare to be ragging the behind off your turbos and then coming to an immediate complete engine off. Most journeys will likely have an element of time towards the end where the driving is, by nature, gentler for a few minutes.

[Tripletrouble]

Extended / 'long life' official oil service intervals. That's a whole different subject in itself..

Indeed it is. I have just sold my Mondeo which was serviced every 12k on the dot. The turbo was starting to whine when I sold it.
Now I cannot see how a manufacturer would say 20k is OK for a car to go between oil changes if it knew it wasn't? The bad press would be monumental.
Hyundai state 20k for the i40 and give a 5 yr unlimited mileage warranty so they must have some faith. The sales guy in Cardiff Audi told me quite categorically that I should have my car switched to long life servicing ASAP as I do 20k+ P/A.
Would they do that knowing it will eventually FUBAR the engine?

[boof]

I don't have anything at all to back this up but I'm fairly sure BMW for one have been quietly reducing service intervals heavily for new models as of this year, at least in the NA market. If you're doing 20k per annum would it also be true you will at least be getting the oil changed, time wise, once a year?

Therefore there could be a nice balance there for you. 'Traditional' long life servicing could see you two years between changes for some marques if your mileage was average.

If you're in this thread worrying about turbo cool down - then I would hope you're also on the fixed term 10k scheduling as well..

[Tripletrouble]

Oil would be changed once a year at 20k, yes.
Turbo cool down is not something that worries me as I have a routine when I get home that means the car is in neutral for the last 200 yrds just ticking over.
A bigger concern should be allowing the turbo to spool down after a spirited run so it's not at 100k rpm when the oil supply is cut off!!