102PS with 2 Turbo Failures - was re-map to blame?

[Niknak]

It’s so easy to prime the oil lines yet most people don’t but if you asked them they are bound to say they did, has vw ( or TPS if parts got from them) been contacted for parts warranty, as again if genuine part , parts and labour are covered under warranty from a vw garage

 

[Stevo468]

Update: Long chat with Quantum: I'm being convinced that the the 102ps has the same hardware as the 140ps engine variant, Then to get to 170ps the mapping is exploiting the 140ps engine's reserve to be able to get 170ps via mapping. Hmmmmm.... Mapping file guy reckons most power gains on TDI engine are achieved via fuelling and not turbo boost. I've been told that the 170ps map only increases boost pressure by 0.1 bar - that is two part of jack all.. Hmmm..Surely a big increase in diesel fueling with a corresponding minor hike in boost pressure would send big black clouds out the exhaust and foul up the DPF?? But Quantum have sold 1000's of these maps without a problem???

Generally, my understanding is that optimum fuelling and efficiency converge. So to get more fuel efficiency and a big increase in power is simply mutually exclusive.

That aside, I'm feeling that the original turbo may have been staved of oil - hence the seizure of the exhaust turbine. The garage replaced the turbo, but did not replace the oil feed pipes or check for flow and pressure.

But wait..... Why did I not experience a big power first time around?? Or was I expecting too much??

 

[JOG]

Update: Long chat with Quantum: I'm being convinced that the the 102ps has the same hardware as the 140ps engine variant, Then to get to 170ps the mapping is exploiting the 140ps engine's reserve to be able to get 170ps via mapping. Hmmmmm.... Mapping file guy reckons most power gains on TDI engine are achieved via fuelling and not turbo boost. I've been told that the 170ps map only increases boost pressure by 0.1 bar - that is two part of jack all.. Hmmm..Surely a big increase in diesel fueling with a corresponding minor hike in boost pressure would send big black clouds out the exhaust and foul up the DPF?? But Quantum have sold 1000's of these maps without a problem???

Generally, my understanding is that optimum fuelling and efficiency converge. So to get more fuel efficiency and a big increase in power is simply mutually exclusive.

That aside, I'm feeling that the original turbo may have been staved of oil - hence the seizure of the exhaust turbine. The garage replaced the turbo, but did not replace the oil feed pipes or check for flow and pressure.

But wait..... Why did I not experience a big power first time around?? Or was I expecting too much??

I’m not mechanical, but I’ve been following this thread with interest. Someone further up suggested that the original turbo may have been starting to fail anyway which is why there was no discernible change in “oomph”?

 

[Niknak]

Because your original turbo was failing

 

[Niknak]

I’m not mechanical, but I’ve been following this thread with interest. Someone further up suggested that the original turbo may have been starting to fail anyway which is why there was no discernible change in “oomph”?

Sorry @JOG didn’t see your post

 

[DaveD]

But wait..... Why did I not experience a big power first time around?? Or was I expecting too much??

Possibly, and I use that word because I don't pretend to have the expert knowledge that some forum members certainly do have, the turbo was in the early stages of failure when you had the remap done, i.e. it wasn't spooling up to the extent that it should have been. NikNak said:

if your original turbo was that screwed it would have been seizing over time

That might explain why the remap didn't give you the results you'd expected.

Edit: I definitely have the slowest typing finger on this forum!

 

[Niknak]

I just repeat what you say makes me seem cleffa @JOG

 

[JOG]

Sorry @JOG didn’t see your post

See? I do listen to you @Niknak - I just couldn’t find your post to quote it!

 

[JOG]

I just repeat what you say makes me seem cleffa @JOG

Oooh! Don’t do that! That can get you into no end of trouble!

As my late father advised me many, many moons ago: “Son, with a gob on you as fast as that, you’d better learn to box fast or run fast!” Bless him, he wasn’t wrong!!!

 

[Niknak]

Think the only way you can look at this is remaps are bad news but the turbo has not been installed correctly

 

[Niknak]

Oooh! Don’t do that! That can get you into no end of trouble!

As my late father advised me many, many moons ago: “Son, with a gob on you as fast as that, you’d better learn to box fast or run fast!” Bless him, he wasn’t wrong!!!

I’ve heard similar before lol

 

[Insert Coin]

This is the nearest Quantum dealer to me in Poole - Wessex Tuning Specialists in Ecu Remapping, Dpf and Egr Solutions

I quote

• Every vehicle we do is Custom Remapped, nothing less will do

Everything they do is a generic map, absolutely not bespoke in anyway, they don’t even have a dyno to prove their claims.

I wouldn’t let them tune a cheap violin, they are a typical franchisee who don’t have a clue about the technical side of what they are doing.

If you have a VW T5/6 it’s either Revo or Pendle, nobody else has done anywhere near as much r&d.

 

[JOG]

This is the nearest Quantum dealer to me in Poole - Wessex Tuning Specialists in Ecu Remapping, Dpf and Egr Solutions

I quote

• Every vehicle we do is Custom Remapped, nothing less will do

Everything they do is a generic map, absolutely not bespoke in anyway, they don’t even have a dyno to prove their claims.

I wouldn’t let them tune a cheap violin, they are a typical franchisee who don’t have a clue about the technical side of what they are doing.

If you have a VW T5/6 it’s either Revo or Pendle, nobody else has done anywhere near as much r&d.

Ha ha ha! I had to follow the link after that post and here is what they’re offering me:

 

[Insert Coin]

Ha ha ha! I had to follow the link after that post and here is what they’re offering me:

View attachment 98369

The owner has borrowed a shed load of money to get himself set up, but up until 3 or 4 years ago he was selling tyres and exhausts for a fast fit place in town.

 

[JOG]

The owner has borrowed a shed load of money to get himself set up, but up until 3 or 4 years ago he was selling tyres and exhausts for a fast fit place in town.

I’d love some of the real engineers and mechanics on here to rock up for some work to be quoted and then start asking some probing questions! It’s got to be worth £250 from “You’ve Been Framed”!!!

 

[DXX]

The owner has borrowed a shed load of money to get himself set up, but up until 3 or 4 years ago he was selling tyres and exhausts for a fast fit place in town.

Probably because he spotted money for old rope which doesn’t require big expensive premises for storage. You can’t just blame the shark, it takes a few careless swimmers to make it complete.

 

[Daffy]

So as someone who has spent his whole career around Diesel engines at Manufacturer/R&D/Fault elimination levels and now make a bit of his living investigating (amongst other things) engine failures and the fall out from these, I would suggest the following is possible/likely.

I don’t want to get into the rights and wrongs of remapping but I don‘t think the map is a factor in the failure as Turbo’s don't just fail for no reason and they certainly dont fail within a few miles just because they are working outside of their duty cycle, in fact they wont really stay outside of their duty cycle until they are at peak power type revs labouring in a high gear.

As to the suggestion that you can achieve more power by increasing fuel volume without increasing oxygen, this simply isn’t possible, you want more power then introduce fuel and burn it, to introduce more oxygen you must increase volume and to do this in a confined space you must increase pressure - like beans on toast, you cant have one without the other.

In my experience replacement turbo’s that fail shortly after the repair are almost always the result of a workmanship issue, usually the result of some carryover from the first failure. Clever wording on the invoice doesn’t let them off their responsibility for their workmanship.

If I was to look at your case, ideally I would want to see the first turbo, possible reasons for failure that come to mind include.

• Oil supply issues.
• Oil drain issues, a blocked or restricted drain has pretty much the same effect as no supply as the oil will degrade very quickly if it hangs around in the turbo too long.
• Debris from the first failure being drawn into the new turbo.
• Failure to prime the new turbo, picking up a bearing on first startup.
• component failure within the new unit (very unlikely considering the old unit failed)

If you have the old unit either get a specialist to look at it or try for a parts warranty claim, if VW reject it ask for a report or written reason for rejection.

Do you have any photos of either of the turbo’s, I’d be happy to take a look - I need some good quality pictures of the compressor wheel and nut if you can.

 

[JOG]

So as someone who has spent his whole career around Diesel engines at Manufacturer/R&D/Fault elimination levels and now make a bit of his living investigating (amongst other things) engine failures and the fall out from these, I would suggest the following is possible/likely.

I don’t want to get into the rights and wrongs of remapping but I don‘t think the map is a factor in the failure as Turbo’s don't just fail for no reason and they certainly dont fail within a few miles just because they are working outside of their duty cycle, in fact they wont really stay outside of their duty cycle until they are at peak power type revs labouring in a high gear.

As to the suggestion that you can achieve more power by increasing fuel volume without increasing oxygen, this simply isn’t possible, you want more power then introduce fuel and burn it, to introduce more oxygen you must increase volume and to do this in a confined space you must increase pressure - like beans on toast, you cant have one without the other.

In my experience replacement turbo’s that fail shortly after the repair are almost always the result of a workmanship issue, usually the result of some carryover from the first failure. Clever wording on the invoice doesn’t let them off their responsibility for their workmanship.

If I was to look at your case, ideally I would want to see the first turbo, possible reasons for failure that come to mind include.

• Oil supply issues.
• Oil drain issues, a blocked or restricted drain has pretty much the same effect as no supply as the oil will degrade very quickly if it hangs around in the turbo too long.
• Debris from the first failure being drawn into the new turbo.
• Failure to prime the new turbo, picking up a bearing on first startup.
• component failure within the new unit (very unlikely considering the old unit failed)

If you have the old unit either get a specialist to look at it or try for a parts warranty claim, if VW reject it ask for a report or written reason for rejection.

Do you have any photos of either of the turbo’s, I’d be happy to take a look - I need some good quality pictures of the compressor wheel and nut if you can.

Well argued! Structured and logical. Yes, if one can discount the remap as a contributor, then the scrawlings on the invoice can also be discounted. I fear that to do so, an alternative cause (component failure or workmanship) has to be accepted and this is the challenge the OP has.
From the contributions I’ve read, I’d happily have @DXX and @Niknak in my corner for that debate.

(Yeah, squint a bit lads, there’s a compliment in there somewhere!)

 

[Stevo468]

OK, on reflection post chat with Quantum file mapping guy I'm still a little sceptical. I can't help but go back to the fact that it's school boy physics in my view: To get more power you will need more fuel with more air, i.e.more oxygen for combustion. Simply pumping more fuel in may generate a little more power on a diesel, but its has to be a very limited effect. If there isn'y enough oxygen to burn the extra fuel then no more power - just inefficient combustion. Now having said that I do remember those videos of diesel powered tractor drag races belching out huge volumes of black some at full throttle, but I suspect that was them using over fuelling to every ounce of extra power they could get. If a re-mapped road going vehicle did that, you sure would hear about it. And it would be silly to think that the DPF could process that amount of extra soot.

So the only way I can see I can get irrefutable proof of the 102ps to 170ps power gain is via a rolling road. Anyone know of anyone having been done this with a Quantum re-map???

The more I'm reading the more I'm thinking a re-map should really not be an off the shelf affair, but a carefully developed incremental change via a rolling road to assess the change in engine parameters as each mapping look up table value is careful modified. This will ensure the re-map takes account of your particular engine's condition.

More facts to consider, I have owned the van from new. It is my 3rd b new transporter over the years. I was always a little disappointed with the power from this one from new, but if the turbo was not spooling up properly from new it would not have lasted 40,000 mikes without any further appreciable loss in performance. There has been no noticeable further loss in performance from new. The EGR was replaced after approx 18 months the from new.

So far my current thoughts are thus:
The re-map power gains claims were simply unrealistic.
There was a small gain in power, but it just didn't meet my expectations - hence me not being sure there was much of an effect.
Coincidentally the turbo failed just after the re-map because of an unrelated fault.
The garage failed to diagnose the root cause of the failure
The garage weren't confident that they had identified the cause of the turbo failure and sneakily figured they'd cover their butts by adding the turbo warranty disclaimer without ever saying anything about it.
The second turbo failure could be due to lack of oil feed, but why did it start up and run fine for a drive around the block and then in the 2 miles I drove it, fail catastrophically
The re-mapping being the cause is a complete red herring.
Legal advice as it stands is based on the balance of probability and the only way I'm going to to get the re-mapping monkey off my back is for someone to confirm the cause of failure.
Proving the oil feed pressure and flow to the turbo is not an easy thing to do. A VAG master Tech suggested that only way this can be done is to crank the engine with the oil feed to the turbo disconnected and monitor the output. Is a regular mechanic like to do that?
I'm struggling to accept that the new VAG supplied turbo was faulty. Modern quality control processes practically eliminate this kind of occurrence, but the compressor/impeller nut had come off the end of the main spindle, which is odd unless as I said before, it simply wound off, due to rotation inertia when the turbo locked up. Assuming the the turbo did sieze again shearing the spindle and releasing the oil - this has not been confirmed other that a lot of engine oil was sucked through the engine when it failed second time around.

Jeez I'm not feeling I'm getting close to the truth yet.....

 

[Samro]

I think you are close to the truth of it @Stevo468.

My feeling is that you need to get an experienced specialists to form a report in order to build up a case in order to apportion blame.

Personally, I feel that the remap could cause premature failure of your drive train in the form of long term deterioration or unexpected instantaneous failure of the transmission; but your situation is that the most likely cause of failure is an oil delivery fault that has been missed by the repairing engineer. This is something that a specialist could probably confirm in order to form a robust case.

Did you present your van to the repairer as “Fix that. It’s bust ” or give specific instruction to “replace the turbo”? (Your specific instructions will have a bearing on the extent of the Repairer’s duty of care,)

My view is that if your instruction was the former, you should get a reputable report written up sooner rather than later in order to officially document the cause of the failure and go from there.