2008 Sprinter with repeated turbo failures.

anarchyx34

New member
Hoping some of you can help me with this thing. I'm about to pull what's left of my hair out.

In my shop I have a 2008 Sprinter that originally came in with massive oil leaks. Aside from a crack in the oil pan, the seals for the oil cooler in between the cyl heads were leaking. I replaced those, and while I had everything apart, I started the motor to check for additional leaks and noticed a pretty significant amount of oil coming out of the exhaust outlet of the turbo.

Sourced a rebuilt turbo from buyautoparts.com, installed it, performed regen and road tested. Everything seemed fine so I let the van go. The thing comes back a week later with a failed turbo. Ridiculous axial play in the turbo and a DPF filled with oil. Great. Got a replacement unit from the seller, installed it and now I'm running the engine sans exhaust again and I'm seeing oil again. Enough to put little black dots on a piece of paper if I hold it behind the turbo. With a flashlight you can see oil seeping down the backplane behind the turbine while it's spinning. Buyautoparts has no answer for me, other than sending me another replacement or upgrading to a brand new turbo for an additional $450. My customer is ready to have my head so I'd rather not try and shake another $450 out of him unless absolutely necessary. I'm not convinced a brand new unit will solve this problem.

I cant understand how I'm having trouble with 3 turbos. Something else has to be going on here. I'm using 5w-40 synthetic oil, and I checked the oil pressure at the turbocharger itself. I'm getting 45psi at idle on a cold engine. I checked it on another known-good vehicle and it's the same. I don't know what else to check. Has anyone seen something like this happen before? Is this just really ****ty luck?

Thanks.
 

Dingo

New member
When the original turbo failed , did you wash out the intercooler & piping ?? seen many that have filled the system with oil

however you do say you can see oil running down turbine SO ..............

I trust you cleaned out the oil return pipe from the turbo to the sump . I would remove & make sure you can feed a thick wire rod down & there are no obstructions . also make sure the pipe to turbo gasket does not cover any part of the outlet from the turbo . It sounds more like you have a build up of oil pressure in the oil return . You may even find remnants of the first turbo lurking in the oil return pipe , blocking the oil's flow .

Hope my thoughts help you out

keep us posted on what you find
Also please can you proivde engine type in future posts just so we know exactly which motor is the problem :hugs:
 

manwithgun

Unknown member
Any updates on this one? I never thought to check the oil return path. I'm currently dealing with a significant oil loss issue. After replacing a torn CCV oil separator, swaping turbo, removing and cleaning stuck swirl valves, intakes, and egr cooler, and even trying the elephant hose mod, my van is still consuming about a quart per 100 miles.... runs like a champ though! I'm going to continue an existing thread on the topic but I'm at a loss as to where the oil is going. Suppose a compression test comes next?
 

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