Following a service in October my car started to puff white/greyish smoke when changing from 1st to 2nd on sets off and is worse when warm. I began to research and ask for advice from tuners and professionals about what issues my car could have, I settled on a turbo change following VCDS scans and research.
I searched locally and decided on a reconditioned turbo from Turbo Solutions in Darlington. While starting the turbo change, I notice that the old faulty turbo on my car looked very new and unused. When the turbo was removed it was obvious that the bearing had went as there was some movement in the shaft but it was stamped and marked with TS and numerous marking around nuts, seals etc. The Turbo was very clean and looked like it had done little mileage as the pictures show below.
Obviously little curious on exchange of my turbo back to Turbo Solutions, they confirmed that is was a reconditioned unit of theirs. I queried them on sale date and it had been sold with a 12 months warranty and fitted to my car a month before I had bought it and only covered 10500miles within 16 months period before the thrust bearing had failed. Unhappy about it I asked why it had happened, there technical department offered reasons such as, oil starvation, blocked air filter, over boosting, boost leaks, poor remap.
All these issues they raised just seemed like excuses to me and they didn’t offer any good will gesture and just said its out of warranty, even though they now issue a 24 month warranty. The customer service was shocking and IMO the warranty is not worth the paper it’s written on because they would just come out with the same excuses. I have found that the reconditioned unit is laggy and I’m Not impressed at all.
