neljoshua

I just picked up a 2005 allroad with the 2.7t and a 6-speed. It has 84000 miles and is in pretty good shape overall; it needs a new radio and I plan to do a timing belt change on it in the next month or so (have not sold my Golf yet...).

I know that the turbos can be an issue with these cars. From what I have read, it seems that the K04s are the way to go when replacing them. My question is this: are the K04s more reliable in this application? I think that most people go that route for the added power. This is not to say that more power would not be nice, but I purchased this car because I wanted a manual awd wagon that could seat our whole family. Ergo, reliability is more of a concern than power for me.

Related question: could one directly swap in the K04s without doing any other mods (software or otherwise) and expect the same performance but with better reliability? If so, then perhaps I could do that and do the other upgrades later.

Thanks.

grat

I wouldn't recommend K04s without other mods as you will increase intake pressures with restrictions from the stock plumbing. My stock turbos lasted 196K miles. I've seen others go even higher. So unless you suspect you have a turbo problem I wouldn't worry about it. Also bear in mind that changing the turbos requires a full engine pull as it can't be done with the engine in-car.

neljoshua

@grat,

Thanks for the reply. I am aware that the engine needs pulled to replace the turbos.

This is more of a "what if" question.

Would you recommend K04 over Frankenturbo?

grat

Can't really offer an opinion as Frankenturbo wasn't an option when I did mine. I've read that the torque curves are a bit different but overall comparable. Frankenturbo has a better warranty 2 years vs 1 year for the BW K04. *shrug*