broken turbo?

[dci120matt]

hello all, the turbo on my 1.9Dci has always made quite a loud whistling noise since i bought it last august with 24,000 on the clock, i was aware of the turbo problems with them, apparantly quite a few give up before their time. i was reading my performance french car magazine and a bloke wrote in saying that his turbo on his megane whistled but still went like stink, and the reply was that the boost controller solenoid fails resulting in too much boost being produced by the turbo and this can cause the intercooler to split or the bearings or something in the turbo to fail causing the whistling noise, has anybody else got the loud whistling from their turbo, i have ordered a new solenoid from renault today but i am still concerned, i was thinking of buying a forge uprated intercooler as apparantly they are a straight swap just to be on the safe side a i was planning on having the car remapped at the end of the month, the car has covered 34,000 and 4 years old so surely the turbo is not on its way out, it has had 6 oil changes in its life so far so its not like the car has been neglected, any help would be appreciated.

cheers matt

[robznet]

Hi Matt - the question must be how loud? Mines a 1.5 dCi and I can hear the turbo just about with the windows closed (and the missus not takling to me!). It is more pronounced when the windows are down, but I would not describe it as loud, just a nice whistling whoosh! (not a very good description I'm sure).

Rob

[Toosh]

My 1.9 turbo is not what i call loud but you can here it clearly with the windows up or down, it seems at its loudest at around 2k and then fades away as the revs climb.

And while i'm here if i change gear at around the 2k mark i get a sort of dump valve sound, which is nice

Anyone else get this?

[robznet]

Not on the 1.5 dCi, maybe it's different on the 1.9?

Rob

[dry_flood]

Unless im wrong the turbo doesnt actually kick in until 2k revs?

[dci120matt]

to be honest i took it out for a drive yesterday and i had to open the windows to hear it, the sound is like air escaping rather than a whistle, it only really whistles when i let off the accelerator, and mine makes the noise like it has a dump valve too. perhaps it is ok then? i have ordered a new boost control solenoid anyway just to be on the safe side so i will fit it over the weekend to see if anything changes.

[Toosh]

Good stuff, keep us posted

[dci120matt]

fitted the new solenoid today, quite easy really, i have taken it on a test drive and personally i think the car is slower than before, the noise is pretty much still the same so perhaps there was nowt wrong in the first place, i also noticed the flat spots when accelerating up to 4k when before the power delivery was really smooth. the mrs thinks its in my head but she is always the passenger so she does not know how the car feels and reacts when i put my foot down. i will give it a couple of days to see if much changes.

[Toosh]

Hmmmmm

Maybe the only way to see if your car is acting up is to drive a different dci 120?

Infact i would like to do this aswell

[AlexB]

Is it different from the recording in the sticky topic above?

[dci120matt]

the sound from my car is not like that at all, that is a whistle, mine is more like air being pushed out, i know its not a very good description, to be honest when driving over to my girlfriends house earlier i put the windows down and it is alot quieter than after yesterdays test drive, i dont know what to do now really, i will carry on driving it as is but if anybody gets more info on noisy turbos then please put a message up.

[AlexB]

If air is escaping, then your turbo is trying to inflate the atmosphere. How close to the limit do you think your turbo spins and how much does the air leak add? I would be worried about it.