Just picked this from another forum were the discussion related to blown turbo's and things that contribute to failure - never heard this one before, what is the RRS crew opinion.


"Apparently on of the biggest mistakes you can make is to speed down the motorway then pull straight into a motorway petrol station and turn the engine off. It is advisable to pull to one side in the petrol station and let the engine run and the turbo cool down before switching off or drop your speed a few miles before pulling into the petrol station. The residual/excess heat dries out the turbo lubrication or something of the like.

I've heard that another thing that doesn't do the turbo any good is running it above 2500 RPM before everything has had a chance to warm up. I suspect smaller engines in larger cars (e.g. small engine in a people carrier) or cars that are only used for short journeys are more at risk from this.

Sometimes when a turbo fails bits from the broken turbo go into the engine and the engine blows shortly after the new turbo is fitted - not sure if there's anything that can be done to prevent this (e.g. oil change) - maybe the mechanics here can help."

This is old stuff on desiels im afraid.

There is a split actually between whether you should run the engine up at high speeds to get the oil pumping straight away or leave it to warm up then do it.

Also the one about not doing many short journeys (more when the engine is cold, warm engine short journeys arent as bad) - is common, probably applying more now to modern cars than it did to old cars. Mike

2014 Facelift Discovery

On all my Subaru Impreza Turbo's ive had there has been a sticker on the inside door panel saying after a run let the engine cool down for about 2 minutes on tick over before being switched off or something like that, and it is to save the turbo from overheating and going bang, i used to have a turbo timer on mine, i do this on every turbo vehicle i drive. I once had a turbo blow on me on a wagon whilst travelling down the motorway, fortunately i knew what had happened and managed to save the engine by knocking it into neutral and coasting to a stop on the hard shoulder and switching the engine off, before the engine sucked in the turbo. Four weeks later a college wrote it off running into the back of a parked artic.

In real terms it doesnt make any odds, is your house at the top of the slip road off the motorway you have just driven down at 140 mph ?? I thought not ! If you've just dragged a 3500 kg trailer up a hill then yes leave it running to take the residual heat out of the turbo / turbo's it also lets the rest of the cooling systems catch up as well. My chipped Td5 manifold and turbo will achieve a cherry red glow on a hard pull, so that gets left for a good ten minutes to get back to basics.