ang1dust

Good Afternoon,

I seek any guidance in which someone has experienced a turbo failure. I have had my 2010 A4 from mile 2 and been through a few milestones with the car.
At 55,000 mile i added stage 1 APR tune
I blew the engine at 60,000 miles, was replaced out of pocket and all external parts (turbo, ac compressor, power steering etc) were reused on new motor. [I believe the timing chain tensioner failed]
At 80,000 the new engine (this engine had 20,000 miles less than my car did) was rerung by Audi under the oil consumption.
At 110,000 the timing tensioner of the new engine failed. **
110,500 upon returning from a trip from Houston to College station, the turbo just blows.

Please understand the seal was not leaking causing it to smoke or any other signs of a turbo about to fail.

After some research i have not seen anyone state their turbo simply going out without signs. The mechanic working on it tells me the bearing went out, causing the seal to blow which in turn destroyed the
turbo after the shaft of the turbo can no longer hold a wobbling turbine.

At this point, i dont know what i dont know. I know enough about engines but only enough to know what a turbo is, and what it looks like. The mechanics and expected life of a turbo is beyond me. Does this
sound normal? I am aware most turbos under stock conditions should generate anywhere from 150-200k miles. The tunes will shorten the life - at least i know that now. You dont really think about it when you add
the tune. I just want to make sure there was no foul play from the previous repair where a piece of metal was pulled inside the turbo bearing which without question, even to a novice would know, the turbo will
have some sort of catastrophic failure.

Lastly, if turbo failure was caused by something other than the end of its life span, how do i prove this? What evidence am i looking for? How do i point him in that direction?
I feel its very coincidence that the first trip after a large repair the turbo fails and not before the repair, during the testing when the car was repaired but after the repair. Im hoping to find some evidence of an anomaly. But
it seems easier said than done(proving).

Thanks for your help in advance.
Mike

**I want to explain the tensioner failing the 2nd time because it was probably the lesser of all evils that could have happened. I backed the car into a spot, turned the car off. Upon my return, it would not start. Turning
the car off simply pushed the chain off its course. Of course, as any normal person would do i tried to start it many many times thinking it was electrical or computer. I even looked at the crankshaft position sensor before
towing it in. Come to find out my attempts probably bent more valves since it is an interference engine.

SMac770

They didn't update the tensioner when they replaced the rings/pistons? That's downright negligent. If it was the K rev tensioner, something more was at work than the common tensioner failure issue. You know Audi just concluded a class action regarding tensioner failure?

Our turbos aren't good for even 80k miles without developing excessive wastegate play. But that's the normal issue, not a blown bearing. You might ask APR if they believe a stage 1 tune would expose a weak bearing that factory output would not. They're a company though, so you can probably forget about getting any truth from them. Were the oil or coolant lines clogged? Maybe you just got that "barely adequate" bearing that still passed QA. I assume the bearing typically is fine unless there's a cooling issue.

If it was a poor installation or debris from the repair job in the oil, good luck proving it. Is the shop doing the turbo review the same shop that did the second tensioner repair?

Luckily, you can get refurb B8 2.0T turbos for a few hundred dollars, or an official Audi refurb (the S rev are all refurbs, Audi doesn't sell any "new" B8 2.0T turbos anymore) for just under a K. Lot less cost than tensioner and rings scenarios.

ang1dust

Apparently they didnt replace the tensioners. I did not know it concluded. Do you have a link on it? Ill do some research on it i thought it was still in deliberation.

Never had a wastegate issue, thought that was pre 2010. I even had an upgraded divertervalve, i replaced it with the fastbits anyway. The whole issue ended up being a failing injector, just realized i forgot to add that to the list of repairs - failing in jector and intake manafold replacement due to the flap runner junk.

All the same mechanic shop, he claims he doesnt see any blockage of oil starving the turbo. Ive looked around for a turbo and it seems they range from 1k -1400 k and that falls in the k03/k04 area. I have a new car now, the only reason id add a K04 would be to increase the life of the turbo without adding
more of a tune to it. Meaning id stick with stage 2.

Im always skeptical with car shops, this shop started off good but hes a hardcore businessman. Doesnt offer discounts or anything. High priced stuff but the first repair(engine swap) he did such a good job i had 0 issues for almost 50k miles. After that i had a few things here and there
i dont wish to bore you with. He offered a used turbo with 1000 miles on it for 700 dollars. If i buy his turbo im probably just going to sell the car this year. I just dont trust him anymore with a few things i feel he has neglected to tell me.

EDIT: I found https://www.carcomplaints.com/news/2...-lawsuit.shtml where it is about to conclude. The unfortunate part is the car is at 110 and the engine is a 90 at the point of the tensioner failing. The first one was probably the tensioner but at the time of failure
there was no known trend of tensioners failing, he just blamed it on my mishifting the transmission (during spirited driving accidnetly shifted from 3rd back to 2nd during high rpms). I feel i might not get anything, this time around.