Turbo booster seal keeps blowing

BocaDad

New member
Hello folks!

I hope all of you are doing well and enjoying your summer.

I have a little story and would appreciate guidance from the group on how to proceed.

I own a 2017 AI (Sadie) purchased new from an RV dealer in South Florida. I try to use it whenever I need to take the wife and four boys somewhere together. I’m talking about vacations, travel team games, or even just to dinner from time to time just to keep it moving.

Every summer we take a trip to the mountains of northern Georgia, and we just got back from our third traveling with Sadie. The first was trouble free, but the second was interrupted by a blown o-ring somewhere in the turbo system. It caused the engine light to come on and activated a special “limp” mode restricting the engine to 3,000 RPM’s. We were incredibly lucky since the nearest sprinter dealer was only 16 miles away in South Atlanta. We limped in and they were able to diagnose and fix the damage within a few hours. It was incredible.

Anyway, this year we made the same trip, and although I was apprehensive about taking the van on a long trip again, it drove great during the entire trip...until we were ready to leave on Wednesday. I don’t know what exactly happened, but as I was driving down a hilly road, an explosive release of air, or hydraulic fluid, sounding similar to that of the brakes on a semi, suddenly occurred from the rear, and soon after the transmission felt like it was slipping. I safely pulled over to the shoulder and just sat there, engine running, trying to gauge what had just happened. Originally, since the sound originated from the rear, I simply assumed that I lost my air suspension, however, after inspecting the vehicle, that wasn’t it.

Since I wasn’t getting any idiot lights informing me otherwise, I continued slowly to the nearest truck dealer in town to have them take a look. The drive there was not great. From time to time the transmission would slip and a loud blowing sound would originate from the engine. Very weird, especially since the gauges didn’t really show anything as over heating or low in pressure. I slowly made it to a Ford/Chevy dealer where they connected her to their diagnostic scanner. They verified something was up, but didn’t know what since it was a Mercedes code. I was convinced the problem must have be a blown differential or something else withing the transmission so I called Mercedes Roadside Assistance for help. They found me a flatbed to take the van the next morning to the nearest sprinter dealer 81 miles away, and I rented a car for us to follow.

We arrived at RMB Mercedes of Alfaretta around 2pm on Thursday and were told that they would not be able to look at the Van until Friday afternoon at the earliest, but most likely not before Monday. Well, given that news, we decided to continue home in the rental and planned to come back up whenever they fixed whatever was wrong with Sadie. We arrived safely home Friday around 1:30 am.

On Friday afternoon I get a call from the dealer that Sadie is fixed. She had blown a seal in the turbo which caused all the problems. It wasn’t the transmission, it was a blown o-ring in the turbo...again! That’s two years in a row!

Although I’m upset we didn’t stay in Atlanta overnight and saved the future plane fare, I’m more upset that the turbo blew a seal again. The rep suggested that the other dealer may have put it in backwards or something causing the problem, but assured me it will not happen again once fixed properly.

Sadie has a whopping 7,000 miles on her old bones.

What are your thoughts? Anyone ever have their turbo blow out on them twice? Should I be worried that I have a defective engine?
 
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