MasonA41.8t

brand new owner of a 01 t4q. i bought the car very cheap because it was not running right and was hoping to get a cheap fix and have a second car for fun. The car will take a charge to start as of now and once started, it dumps a lot of smoke out the tailpipe and i have a obnoxiously loud rattle within the turbo. My guess is just that the bushing is shot and i need a new turbo? Would that also cause the smoke? or would that be something else? Please help
Alex

Prospeeder

yikes ya the turbo is bad. Remember, if you replace the turbo, you should absolutely replace the turbo oil FEED line, and pull the oil pan and inspect the pickup tube for debris. These engines have an awful carbon/sludge issue and it collects in the pickup tube and oil feed and starves the engine and turbo of oil. Even if the engine "sounds" fine to you, unless you want another dead turbo or worse blown engine you should take these precautions.

MasonA41.8t

awesome. thanks for your help! yeah i know nothing about turbos yet. my other car is 08 g6. hoping that once i swap that out it will run great. They said that as they were driving it just lost power and they only drove it about 5 miles home... been towed since

vtraudt

Very good advice. I have seen more turbos destroyed within 2 weeks after install than within the next 12 months due to NOT paying attention to plugged oil supply to the turbo.

Oil pickup tube (new oil pumps are not expansive either) is just good maintenance as well.

vtraudt

Do yourself a favor and get a quality rebuild turbo. NOT ebay cheapo china junk. Even at $200, they cost 10x more than they are worth (metal recycler, $20).

Just coming off 20 hours of trying to tune the 2nd (first one blew up after 2 weeks) ebay K04 turbo on 2001 A4. "Boost creep" (wastegate not able to bleed off boost sufficiently) created big PID headaches; likely wastegate flapper too small, not opening enough or turbine casting restricting wastegate flow.

And is just the tuning part, not to speak of the 'will it last' question (poor (because cheap; inconel is expansive!) turbine housing material, cracks (poor cast quality; casting design).