Reconditioned Turbos

Well the first thing is to give you a basic introduction to how a turbo works!

The exhaust gases from the engine pass through the turbine housing of the turbo via the turbine blades, this in turn begins to spin the turbine. On the front end of the turbo is a Compressor wheel. This is located in the compressor housing with a pipe which is fed from your air filter. As the shaft begins to spin, so does the compressor wheel. This begins to draw air in from the intake, compressing it into the compressor outlet. The outlet is then fed through the car's intercooler and then on to the engines inlet ready for the engine cycle.

Here are some of the typical symptoms of a blown turbo...

The most common symptom would be excessive blue smoke; this is caused by the seals on the turbo shaft leaking oil into the exhaust side, or compression side of the turbo. For those of you wondering why it has an oil supply, it's simply to lubricate the bearings on the turbo shaft.

Another symptom would be loss of power, this can be caused by a number of things, a split intake hose which would create a whistling noise (not to be confused with a whining noise), the waste gate stuck open which would cause the exhaust gas to rush straight down the exhaust manifold and not turn the turbine, therefore the compression side of the turbo is not making any boost pressure. Variable vanes sticking due to a build up of exhaust carbon in the variable vane chamber. Variable vanes operate by allowing exhaust gas to pass through them and spin the turbine, if these vanes are stuck in any way then they will not spin the turbine properly or in some cases not spin it at all, in most cases if you are experiencing loss of power the turbo will need to be taken apart.

Reconditioned turbos offer the same quality as new turbos the difference between a reconditioned turbo and a new turbo is the reconditioned turbo has been striped down and cleaned, then all of the moving parts replaced by new parts. The rest of the turbo parts such as the compressor housing and exhaust housing don't normally need replaced as they rarely suffer from much wear, so when you get your reconditioned turbo it should look almost like a new turbo.