TWO Blown turbo's with less than 13k miles!

[The Fed]

He's under the impression a VW dealer doesn't wait for approval from VW before doing a repair.

 

[imthanick_a]

For any newbies coming in here and seeing this, getting worried about your car - don't. This is a one-off situation, and OP just happens to be very unlucky. No need to worry about your car blowing up since it's very uncommon if you take care of it. I think in OP's case, there is an unaddressed issue that is causing turbo failure. OP I suggest you took a close look at your intake manifold and make sure there are no cracks or anything. As George said, it could also be a boost leak.

 

[MauricioGTI]

My GTI MK7 is a G turbo review, i have already used an extremely aggressive 6 map with no problem, we have a group JB4 with about 60 users of whatsapp in Brazil with and no car broke with JB4 map6 until today, who will say the 2 that is very conservative.

 

[Jamie007]

So things are getting CRAZY now.... The dealership called me, and said that some head honcho district manager is going to fly down to look at my car. Who knows when the heck he will get here. I'm still stranded, unable to get back to my job. This is terrible.

And yes the intake manifold is just fine, I looked at it before bringing it in.

A piece of advice, DON'T MOD YOUR GTI... Unless you have thousands of dollars to spend on repairs. It just can't handle it, hate to say it. I've already contacted another shop in town to see what they will charge to fix it.

I'm starting to get a little paranoid about the whole situation. I'm sorry if this thread disappears. Thanks to all that responded, and good luck to all that are modded.

 

[robmarktoo]

So things are getting CRAZY now.... The dealership called me, and said that some head honcho district manager is going to fly down to look at my car. Who knows when the heck he will get here. I'm still stranded, unable to get back to my job. This is terrible.

And yes the intake manifold is just fine, I looked at it before bringing it in.

A piece of advice, DON'T MOD YOUR GTI... Unless you have thousands of dollars to spend on repairs. It just can't handle it, hate to say it. I've already contacted another shop in town to see what they will charge to fix it.

I'm starting to get a little paranoid about the whole situation. I'm sorry if this thread disappears. Thanks to all that responded, and good luck to all that are modded.

I don't see why you're saying don't mod your GTI because of this. You're having the worst of the worst experience, but that doesn't change the fact that 99% of people who have a tune don't blow up their turbo.

 

[Jamie007]

I don't see why you're saying don't mod your GTI because of this. You're having the worst of the worst experience, but that doesn't change the fact that 99% of people who have a tune don't blow up their turbo.

I hear you... But this car has been a nightmare, you'd probably be saying the same thing if this happened to you. Just my experience modding my last three Subaru's was totally different, over 50k miles stage II on all three of them, not one single issue. And that was in the Las Vegas desert.

 

[vj123]

A piece of advice, DON'T MOD YOUR GTI... Unless you have thousands of dollars to spend on repairs. It just can't handle it, hate to say it. I've already contacted another shop in town to see what they will charge to fix it.

I am sure that most people here who would disagree with your statement about mods. There might have been an issue when this happened for the first time but not fir the second time. Also the repair was done by a local tuner shop and i am not sure how well the work was done / what parts were used.

 

[Strange Mud]

I agree with Jamie about not modding your car unless you can afford to fix it yourself. Feel for ya dude. A breakdown far from home sux 3x compared to at home.

 

[Jamie007]

I am sure that most people here who would disagree with your statement about mods. There might have been an issue when this happened for the first time but not fir the second time. Also the repair was done by a local tuner shop and i am not sure how well the work was done / what parts were used.

Yeah, until their turbo blows! First repair was done by the dealership, but paid for by their performance shop.

 

[cb1111]

So things are getting CRAZY now.... The dealership called me, and said that some head honcho district manager is going to fly down to look at my car. Who knows when the heck he will get here. I'm still stranded, unable to get back to my job. This is terrible.

And yes the intake manifold is just fine, I looked at it before bringing it in.

A piece of advice, DON'T MOD YOUR GTI... Unless you have thousands of dollars to spend on repairs. It just can't handle it, hate to say it. I've already contacted another shop in town to see what they will charge to fix it.

I'm starting to get a little paranoid about the whole situation. I'm sorry if this thread disappears. Thanks to all that responded, and good luck to all that are modded.

I hear you. That's what I've been saying all along except I always get called an old fart.

I don't see why you're saying don't mod your GTI because of this. You're having the worst of the worst experience, but that doesn't change the fact that 99% of people who have a tune don't blow up their turbo.

Maybe. The problem is if people are modding for the wrong reason and merely being lemmings - following the forum advice instead of deciding what they really want on their cars.

Additionally, people tend to overlook the pitfalls and don't consider the possible consequences of their mods. They also don't consider the actual gains - or lack thereof.

Too many people add the mod of the day (JB4, APR, K&N) without first deciding if they actually "need" it.

Too many also expect the dealerships to fix stuff anyway.

I hear you... But this car has been a nightmare, you'd probably be saying the same thing if this happened to you. Just my experience modding my last three Subaru's was totally different, over 50k miles stage II on all three of them, not one single issue. And that was in the Las Vegas desert.

Yep. Although people love to mods VWs, they - like most Europeans - are over-engineered and many parts don't take to modding well.

Let's hope that the original dealership's tuner steps up and takes responsibility.

Good luck and keep us posted please.

 

[vj123]

Yeah, until their turbo blows! First repair was done by the dealership, but paid for by their performance shop.

I didnt find a need to tune my GTI as it had plenty of stock power for my day to day driving.

All i am saying is that percentage of issues seen on modded GTI is very less as this is a very capable platform.

 

[adam1991]

A piece of advice, DON'T MOD YOUR GTI... Unless you have thousands of dollars to spend on repairs.

Isn't that a given? Not that you'll spend the thousands of dollars in repairs, but you have to insure yourself in these matters.

It just can't handle it, hate to say it.

No doubt SOME man-made things are not as good as other, ostensibly "identical" man-made things. I wouldn't say the engineering can't handle it--but some manufactured items can be not as good as others.

I think that VW engineers have done what they can to minimize their own exposure to these inherent manufacturing issues. But the simple fact remains, some engines come out of the factory on the lower end of the reliability scale and do not tolerate well being stressed with mods.

Others come out in the middle, and others come out superbly built and able to handle big-time mods.

It's not fair to make the blanket statement that "these things will break and you will spend thousands of your own dollars".

And maybe your tuning shop made things worse by trying to minimize THEIR expense on the "free" repair they gave you?

 

[adam1991]

Yeah, until their turbo blows! First repair was done by the dealership, but paid for by their performance shop.

You can word it any way you want, but the repair ultimately came out of one guy's pocket--and you can bet he tried his best to minimize the cost.

 

[adam1991]

I can't believe it! Blew my second turbo in less than one year, on my 2017 Sport with less than 13k miles. I posted when my first turbo blew last year, car was barely two months old. It was APR stage 1 when it happened.

Rule of thumb is to wait awhile to mod your car. Two reasons: so that you know what the car is and isn't as a stock unit (maybe you don't need to mod? Maybe you need to hit Stage 3 to rock your world?), AND to see what might blow up during factory warranty.

Maybe your car would have blown up all of its own accord, bone stock. And you never would be caught in this situation. But you'll never know, because you modded it on day 1.

 

[Tsi7]

I'm sorry to hear about your experience, but like I said in my other post, something doesn't sound right...it seems that their is user error somewhere. I don't believe it's on your end but you have to deal with it all unfortunately and yes I can see why you'd never want to deal with a VW again but it could've easily happened on a another make, tuned or not.

IF it really is a district manager coming to see the car, then I imagine this person is directly from VWOA... which means your car has gained a lot of attention from head office