Thread: A myth busted! For me anyway

I bought a charade Turbo at auction in Sydney in 1991.
Oil was dirty , but drove it home which was in Wyagdon St North Sydney right near the Falcon St exit of the expressway. to get there had to go up a BIG hill.
Turned the engine off ( this is the FIRST DRIVE). Next time I started it, the turbo screamed. I fixed it by soakingthe bearing assembly in carbon tetrachloride for a while( to soften the carbon) but the bearing was damaged.
In the end the only solution was a reconditioned turbo. So yes oil is the key to turbo longevity.
I always used synthetic from then on, and even though it didn't fix the tired turbo, the new one lasted until I sold the car many years and 200K later. I always knew when the wastegate was jammed as my wife would come in and say "Gee the Charade is going well "
One thing I learned from 3 turbo cars (Charade , Cordia, Porsche) is that once they get noisy the only fix is to reco them.
Regards Philip A

And this is when an EGT is handy. Why guesstimate the time for the turbo to cool down when you don't know how hot it actually is? I let mine idle until its at around 150-200 degrees. I have a turbo timer but never use it. My EGT is also PIR controller, so technically I could wire it to shut the engine down through the turbo timer when the temperature hits a preset value.

This should scare some.
my experience with idling diesels.i have operated diesel machines from the middle sixties and have seen sixtys and earlier cat etc bulldozers that were what we called glazed up.this means that the bore was to for want of a better word “polished” this occurred when the engine was idled for long periods.This resulted in excessive oil usage .we used to cure this by adding a teaspoon of bon amy or ajax powder down each injector holeto grind away the bore and rough it up.This usually resulted in fixing the excessive oil consumption and if it didn’t we rebuilt the motor.Do not do this to a modern engine

So does this mean having a turbo timer with a 5min setting is actually doing more damage than good?

I let mine idle for 30secs to a minute when i get home to let the turbo cool down but thats it, if i have to wait at the bottom of the drive while stacey gets out and opens the gate or i have to stop to open the gate, drive through and then get back out to shut it i dont bother, i figure thats the idle time i would have given it in the carport. i start the car in the morning on cold mornings and then go down to the gate, open it and come back to the car and drive it out then shut it and drive to work. Matt

A hydraulic accumulator like the "Nical Turbo-saver" is more sensible than an idle shut-down timer. Turbo problems arise from shutting down whilst the turbo is still spinning at very high rpm's when the oil supply is cut off. The accumulator pushes accumulated engine oil back through the turbo bearings after shut down. Fairly common in heavy trucks of US parentage. I have made a couple (years ago) using loader crowd cylinders. Not hard for a fitter-machinist to work out.

Originally Posted by joel_nicholson

And this is when an EGT is handy. Why guesstimate the time for the turbo to cool down when you don't know how hot it actually is? I let mine idle until its at around 150-200 degrees. I have a turbo timer but never use it. My EGT is also PIR controller, so technically I could wire it to shut the engine down through the turbo timer when the temperature hits a preset value.

exactly, although I use under 270*.
If I used any lower, I'd be sitting there for a week.........

We all seem to know whats best for our engines...

Yet LRs own manual for TD5 engines states:

Drive away once started and Oil light has extinguised... Do not rev or load until in normal temperature zone.

It also states... Idle for 10 seconds before shutting down...

I drive Lara to work at 6.00am and its -0 to -2c at the moment.
She's "glowed up" and once the indicator goes out its crank over...
I then fit my belt and then drive straight to work...

Lara also has a TTimer and it's set to 10 seconds. If the vehicle has been worked (low range 4000rpm etc) for extended time I allow it to run out to 20 seconds

The Bon Amy trick was a TSB from LR for the earlier TDI engines too....
They had a batch that werent bedding in properly.

For those that are high idling an engine to 'lube and warm it' is just wasting engine life and fuel...
Your engine isnt made/designed to rev without load. Your not doing it any favours... Just like using "angel gear" to decend hills.... Its murder on the input bearings on the gearbox.

Thanks for the info Plod.

The TDV6 is the same as for the TD5. Don't idle before driving off and run the engine for only 10sec before switching off after heavy loading of the engine.

The engine ECU won't actually let you put heavy loads on the engine until it's ready for it. ie. put your foot down straight off and she'll just ease off slowly! This only last for a short time.