A sad day! turbo has blown! 1.9 dci

[mrphil]

Today a dark cloud loomed over my life, i just sold our 2nd car, and on getting home and pulling up could only describe the sound equivalent to not being in gear correctly and making that qqqqqqqq noise.

upon further inspection and a quick drive around, its the turbo, sounds like bearings, prior to this ive had a whiz like the pipes where being strangled, and also a bit of oil in the intercooler pipes...

shrugged it off, and car never appeared to be acting differently..

luckily on pulling back up to my house, just as i finished my parking maneuver i noticed the smoke, greyish color and plooms of it, so turned car off, and this is where im at now.

the money ive got which was for a jeep, now appears to be looking at putting into the megane on a turbo replacement...

so im a bit handy, i know how to take the bumper off, intercooler off etc, is this a big job to take on myself? or should i just bite the bullet and pay over £500 in an independent garage?

car mileage is 119,000.
F9Q engine.

[AlexB]

The bumper and intercooler are an easy job. The turbo, however, sits behind the engine and is difficult to access. I never changed one though. See the factory manual in the sticky thread for details. Turbos usually fail because of bad oil...

Yes, it is a sad story. Don't you think that it may be the fate giving you a hint regarding switching to a safer car, r.s.250 for example?..

[taffyhl]

I had mine up on ramps and even then access looked too tight to remove the turbo myself and I'll normally do my own repairs. If I had a pit I'd prob try it.

If (prob when) my turbo does go I'll be selling the car for parts. The rebuilt/recon turbos are a bit hit and miss in terms of quality and new ones too expensive. By the time you have paid for a turbo, feed pipes, maybe new intercooler then labour incl all the extra jobs like cleaning all the pipework, cat, egr and perhaps taking off sump to clean inside engine etc it's gonna cost near £800 and you still have no guarantee it won't blow again within a year.