jim20652

Turbo failed on my 530d last wednesday travelled home for 200 miles on transporter !! took 7 hours loan car is a vauxhaul vectra provided through enterprise car rental yee gods . Turbo due to arrive yesterday at dealers but catalyst on back order wont come till wednesday couldn,t see behind me for smoke when it let go the oil contaminated cat engine would not even turn over once I had stopped dealer said engine is normally ok when a turbo fails just needs a new turbo any one got any experience of turbo failure ? and does it cause engine damage?
This is the cars second trip on a transporter brrake failure the first time the nearsid front caliper fell to bits fortunatley it was on a coutry road stopping was interesting the wife had kittens

Not what I expexted from a car that cost 40 grand




530d june 04 9000 miles uk based

ISUK

My engine died on me last September with similar trails of smoke behind me. BMW assistance tech thought it was a turbo. Turned out to be a collapsed throttle assembly which had been sucked into the engine. I got a replacement engine under warranty. The whole job took 2 weeks because they didn't order a new turbo. When they tried the new engine with the "old" turbo they discovered that the turbo was also damaged - doh! If you do a thread search on here about blown turbos you should find my story.

It'll be interesting to see if yours turns out to be the same fault.

gmartin

Interesting story jim20652. Does your keyboard not have punctuation marks or were you speaking in broken English?

jim20652

Thanks for the English lesson

jim20652

I will keep you posted as things progress, they made their diagnosis without removing any bits so could be same problem that you had

streak

Yes Jim,
Please keep us posted.

If the turbo is going to fail in the UK then it will be more prone to doing so here at high altitude (6000 feet) and high temps (currently 27C).

BMW already detuned the engine (lower compression) for our market beacuse of this.

Streak

E60Speed

Hello streak from JHB

Our diesels are not running lower compression, just different software, this was confirmed with the dealer on their parts system

The only cars BMW SA puts the lower compression engines in are the M3 and the 120i


The problem up her is that the turbo's have to work harder than at sea-level, thus get hotter, so the software richens the mixture to give lower exhaust gas temperatures, sothat the turbo doesnt overheat ( thats what happened to the first upgraded 320d's that kept blowing turbo's )

streak

Hi E60Speed,
Each time I speak to BMW they have another story as to how they de-tuned the engine. I have been given both lower compression as well as software but the former came from BMW SA themselves. I guess we will never know the truth!!

Anyway the Schnitzer ECU more than compensates for this loss but we dont get the same overall increase as when it's used on the European spec. motor.

Streak

jim20652

Hi All
Update on my turbo problems still havent got my 5 back yet but I am told that its on extended test over the week end and will be ready on monday

Its definitley a turbo failure so they say most of the delay has been parts on back order exhaust clamps were the first (they just forgot to order those) then they needed a sensor but that was on back order and not available in europe .

Then they said car would be ready last wednesday then they said the new turbo had an oil leak and would have to be replaced today they say its not an oil leak as they thought but residual oil from the first failure causing engine to smoke but its ok now hence the test to make sure

Only upside they replaced the Vauxhall Vectra with a 320cd auto not a bad car but I miss the 5

I will keep you posted