Turbo Seals Leaking at 61k Miles?

ducsingle

Member
I just had the 60k service performed on my recently acquired 2005 118 cargo tall. The service was performed by an independent diesel only shop that has been doing service work on Freightliner fleet Sprinters for awhile. They also work on big rigs and other assundry diesels.

The mechanic says the seals are going on my turbo as evidenced by oil in the intake conduit. They recommend replacing the turbo with an overhauled unit (from Freightliner) at a cost of about US$1000. I'm not sure whether or not this includes the core for the leaky turbo. The serpentine belt is also showing cracks, so that needs replacing as well.

When I asked if turbo seal failure was a common failure at 60k, he responded that it was more common on Sprinters that were used in stop-and-go-traffic and/or Sprinters that sat idling for longer periods of time.

Have others seen similar problems? And if so, what was the repair cost? $1000 isn't going to kill me, but I'm disappointed to spend that amount of money on a newly acquired vehicle.
 

contractor

New member
How comfortable are you with this shop? I have had shops try to chisel me out of money before for phoney repairs. If I were you, I'd clean off the seals and area in question and monitor it on aregular basis to see just how serious this leak really is.
 

rlent

New member
The mechanic says the seals are going on my turbo as evidenced by oil in the intake conduit. They recommend replacing the turbo with an overhauled unit (from Freightliner) at a cost of about US$1000.
Yeeaah ..... dunno ..... but ya might wanna ask him if he thinks mebbe that oil might just be coming from the exhaust of the engine oil separator ..... it scavenges oil from the crankcase fumes (much like a PCV valve I think.) The scavenged oil is largely returned to the crankcase - but some of the (oily) vapor is fed into the intake tract (upstream of the turbo inlet) - and whether he thinks that might have sumpthin' to do with that oil .... be interesting to see what he has to say ..... :smirk:

I got a little bit of oily drool coming out of the intercooler to intake manifold hose myself .... don't think it's anything terribly abnormal (could be wrong) ..... and the last time I looked the turbo inlet looked clean as a whistle ....
 

scubanw3

Member
I would say your technician does not have the experience to make this call. Almost every T1N has at least a small amount of oil weeping somewhere in the intake track. If you had oil smoke rolling out of the exhaust at idle and plumes of smoke rolling out when punching the throttle and fresh oil on the exhaust side of the turbo housing, then you would be looking at re-conditioning the turbo. Hope this helps.

Thank you, John
Sprinter Store
http://sprinterstore.com/
A division of Upscale Automotive, Inc.
19460 SW 89th Ave.
Tualatin, OR 97062
503-692-0846
 

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