Was travelling down the motorway when suddenly lost a lot of power, My Copen dropped down to about 50 and couldn't go any higher, luckily was coming off at that junction anyway and its gone straight in my garage. Got the front off the car thinking it was the turbo and managed to get at it, the impeller inside spin freely for a second but then kinda clogg up and get jammed then after a bit of force spin freely again. So im guessing it is likely the turbo that has caused my power problem, anyone got any ideas on the reason this is happening? and maybe what i can do to fix it?
About 70k miles on the turbo i think, to my knowledge it hasn't had a new turbo. Last oil change maybe 8 months, i know it should be changed more often than that but it hasn't been.
How many miles have you done in those 8 months? The oil should be changed every 3,000. I know the intervals are stupidly short but these turbos are fragile and require squeaky clean oil to lubricate them. Another good habit to have is to leave the engine running at idle for a few min before you shut off the engine. This will allow the hot oil to flow through the turbo and cool it down and will prevent hot oil from sitting still and cooking in there. It may be possible to have the turbo rebuilt. Not sure if that's going to be much cheaper than a new one.
Probably way more than 3000 i use it daily not really quite sure though, yeah i do normally leave the engine idle for a few mins when i'm not in a rush, would you say the turbo just needs replacing then? Seeing as the impeller sticks? I'm not super great at the whole mechanical side of cars yet so i'm not to sure what i'm doing yet. This is my first car.
If the impeller is sticking, I would assume the bearing is wrecked since that's what allows the thing to spin. Some places can re-build the turbo and it could be cheaper than a new one (new ones cost something like £900) Did it make any excessive squealing or high pitched whine sounds when driving? Anyway, change the oil now since it hasn't been done in a while. It probably won't help the turbo, I think it is too far gone, but it will keep the rest of the engine happy (such as the timing chain, you really don't want that breaking)
