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

[Big Al]

An immediate turbo failure can also be due to down to a number of things such as : did the intercooler get replaced/ professionally cleaned and all hoses too? Did the oil feed/ return pipes get replaced ( maybe debris in pipes) etc etc.

 

[chriscroft]

I agree, that's why I asked about the recon but I also don't think you can rule it out. There will be far too much boost running through the turbo.

VW make significant changes to their hardware and engine setup within 20-30bhp tolerance alterations. Things like intercooler placement and size, turbos, etc... they're the manufacturer who sink the money into development. I think you can definitely add value to an engine/gearbox with maps but you have to support them with hardware upgrades, especially if you're almost doubling the power output.

Revo launched a similar map, which they later pulled off the market.
Again Revo are super cautious with many many 1000's of development miles all over the world and on rolling roads measuring every metric to within an inch of its life.
So if these maps could have destroyed a turbo that quickly, Revo would have know all about it, and would have never had launched this remap in the first place.

The map must have been pulled by Revo for other reasons, such as a turbo not being able to sustain its duty whilst working within the turbo manufactures limits.
i.e the turbo just couldn't do what it said it could do over a long period.

 

[Samro]

I don’t know anything about remapping of road vehicles, but I have a company that specialises in marine diesels and we see our share of engines; my ha’pennys worth of advice would be to get the failed turbo off to a decent turbo specialist. (I would use these guys and ask for Graham.)

I would explain exactly what happened and ask them to provide a report on the failed turbo.

A specialist should be able to let you know if the turbo was simply overhauled and to what extent. You can then decide how to proceed based on this info.

I would be really surprised for a remap to cause such instantaneous failure of a new turbo.

Having said this, I would fully expect a remapped engine to put significant load on everything from fuel pump through to the complete induction system.

It is always tempting to remap as the sales pitch of “something for nothing” is always appealing and true to a point.

The problem is that engines are often detuned by an oem for various differing reasons. The reason could be to make an existing engine meet legislative emission requirements or simply to fill a gap in their engine range. It’s not uncommon for the same engine block to be used for a number of engines within a range provided by an oem. In my experience (NB-Not with VW) there will also be subtle differences between the engine packages. (These differences are not just limited to intercoolers, turbos and transmission)

If this were a marine diesel that we were asked to work on, we would refuse to work on an engine which was known to be remapped.

If I were in the position of your mechanics, I like them, would also have detailed on the invoice that the engine was not known to have been remapped at the time of works and that the repair would not be subject to normal warranty coverage.

 

[Niknak]

Am I just dumb but I think there is a fundamental problem here why are you remapping instead of buying the van with the power you want don’t buy a donkey and enter it in the grand national

 

[DXX]

As long as I can remember there’s been a market for go faster stripes, K&N go slower filters, baked bean can exhausts, more drag body kits and the list goes on.
If anybody out there thinks the vendors are truly interested in the drivers ‘baby’ they are mistaken. The only change I’ve seen is teenagers can’t afford to do it now, it’s seems to be mainly middle aged blokes who should really know better.

 

[Samro]

As long as I can remember there’s been a market for go faster stripes, K&N go slower filters, baked bean can exhausts, more drag body kits and the list goes on.
If anybody out there thinks the vendors are truly interested in the drivers ‘baby’ they are mistaken. The only change I’ve seen is teenagers can’t afford to do it now, it’s seems to be mainly middle aged blokes who should really know better.

It’s tough though when we realise we are over the hill, have a beer belly and have lost our edge! It’s too cold to go biking for us Middle Aged men-mainly because we’ve gone soft..... need another escape as the wife found the garden shed? ......... van time!

 

[chriscroft]

Am I just dumb but I think there is a fundamental problem here why are you remapping instead of buying the van with the power you want don’t buy a donkey and enter it in the grand national

I would agree with the first 4 words of your response.
But seriously, the whole subject is more nuanced than simply a 1 liner.
Nearly all high-end manufactures will sell you exactly the same engine (other than the map) for £2k-£3k more; because they can, and the market will stand it.
But you are right, there are risks to mapping, not least is the situation this post is all about; if something goes wrong, people run for cover, and you can be left holding with the baby when the music stops.

 

[JOG]

Am I just dumb but I think there is a fundamental problem here why are you remapping instead of buying the van with the power you want don’t buy a donkey and enter it in the grand national

Oh, I don’t know! I’ve seen some absolute donkeys in the Grand National!!!

 

[chriscroft]

Life is all about risks; and lots of times it all works out fine; and a few other times, not so much.

 

[Robert]

Hi People, I recently had my 3 1/2 year old T6 Euro 6 102ps re-mapped with a Quantum Tuning map by a highly recommended and accredited mapping guy. I had the full power, up to 170ps map so was expecting great things. The van drove fine after re-mapping, but I was hard pushed to sense a big gain. It seemed a little more spritely in the mid range. I questioned this with the mapping guy and he assured me all was fine. The next day the van died with no prior indication anything was wrong. A local garage diagnosed turbo failure. I mentioned the re-map as it was out of warranty and naively thought his would help them with diagnostics. The local garage re-placed the turbo and fixed everything else trashed by oil being sucked in to the inlet tract. The van was test driven around the block by a mechanic. I paid my £2.2k and collected van and drove off down the road. A couple of miles later the new turbo failed catastrophically as I got into third gear. This time even more of the engine oil seems to have been drawn in to the inlet tract and gone down the exhaust as the new turbo expired. The local garage have now washed their hands of getting involved saying they believe the turbo failures were down to the mapping. I'm not convinced this is the case. They are also saying their warranty is void due to the re-mapping. They even sneakily put this on the invoice as I was settling up without mentioning it - although legally I do not believe it will hold any water because they cannot demonstrate I signed up to accept the liability - which I obviously wouldn't have. The mapping guy made it clear that for whatever reason the original VW map can easily be re-instated if requited.

Now I'm between a very big rock and a hard place as I rely on using this van for work. It's dead, they have my money and I'm back where I started. VW quoted £5k which is why I used the local garage.

Does anyone have a view on this in respect of the likelihood that a re-map could so easily fail the turbo?

It smacks of the local garage being out of their depth and not properly diagnosing the cause of the initial failure and therefore not fixing it and then trying to cover themselves with the warranty voiding statement on the invoice.

Hi Stevo,

I really feel for you but I would like to help you with the best possible advice. So, can you post here your pre & post modification power/torque curve?
I presume if your tuner is a professionalist he would check your engine on the rolling road(dyno) before and after to verify results of his work.

On a side note, all of my VWs with TDI engines have been remapped( I think six so far ). Absolutely fantastic modification and I was/am very happy with each remap.
No issues at all with any modified vehicle. The only thing is that I wouldn't go beyond approximately 30% power increase as a software modification only.

 

[chriscroft]

Hi Stevo,

I really feel for you but I would like to help you with the best possible advice. So, can you post here your pre & post modification power/torque curve?
I presume if your tuner is a professionalist he would check your engine on the rolling road(dyno) before and after to verify results of his work.

On a side note, all of my VWs with TDI engines have been remapped( I think six so far ). Absolutely fantastic modification and I was/am very happy with each remap. No issues at all with any modified vehicle. The only thing is that I wouldn't go beyond approximately 30% power increase as a software modification only.

Quantum mappers mostly don't use a rolling road I think; as is true for lots of Revo mappers I think; as is probably true for 90% of maps in the UK I guess.

 

[Robert]

Re-mapping without checking power and torque curves before and after is a very risky gambling.

 

[Phil_G]

I know nothing about this topic other than to completely avoid remaps, however one point made that seems to have been missed:

...The van drove fine after re-mapping, but I was hard pushed to sense a big gain.

A 70% increase was barely noticeable? surely this suggests something was wrong from the off?

 

[chriscroft]

I think some may do Live maps whilst driving the van on the road, but stock maps aren't live maps I think. Although some do a quick driving check after the stock map

 

[DaveD]

I had the full power, up to 170ps map so was expecting great things. The van drove fine after re-mapping, but I was hard pushed to sense a big gain. It seemed a little more spritely in the mid range.

That surprises me and I wonder if it points to a problem, the van went from 102hp to 170hp and the owner didn't think he noticed a big gain????
Sorry, Phil G, just saw you thought the same but I guess you use more than 1 finger when typing.

 

[Kev_]

All tuners are authorised dealers using stock maps provided by somone like Revo, APR, Ecotune, Unicorn etc. Some provide tuning boxes where they will offer some customisation based on an off the shelf tune and tweaked to your engine. The only reason they log the power before and after is to give a read out of the increase in power and torque. It also shows the rev range and where is optimal to change gear. There is no data logging of your vehicle in that process, just a map produced for that platform. For me, anything above a 20bhp increase you need hardware to support it. Even 20bhp I'd still expect a better pannel filter and less restrictive turbo pipe?

If you push a turbo that has done 50k to nearly double the boost it's designed to handle the oil seals will go or worse. The question here probably is, was the new turbo a 'new' turbo or a second hand used or refurbished turbo?

The OP will have signed a disclaimer when the car was mapped to say that any damage caused is his responsibility for mapping it. There is a mix up here of mentality towards performance tuning (where you know that you pay to play and inevitably it will break and you will pay to fix it) and the fact it's a van and just needs a bit more grunt so a remap won't hurt.

I'd be interested to know if the new turbo was new? And a log of the boost it was running

 

[DXX]

For the smaller turbocharger to produce more boost it has to spin faster for a given engine RPM, producing more exhaust gas to do this is simple enough by increasing fuelling providing the air delivery inc’ intercooler / charge air cooler / induction can cope.
The main issue I see is the rotor bearings and almost certainly the blading are not designed to withstand those higher RPM and higher centrifugal forces. There is also a limitation on the oils film strength.

 

[chriscroft]

Revo, Quantum, etc, etc know all about this stuff I"m sure.
I would be very surprised if either of these companies would launch a map, that went outside the published working parameters of a given turbo.
Much more likely that the turbo couldn't sustain that which the turbo's manufactures claimed.

 

[Pete C]

Well @Stevo468 has a lot to read when he comes back to this thread. The bottom line seems to be he needs to find out how his turbo failed, and only a specialist can determine that.

Pete

 

[Niknak]

Actual tuning is totally different than just chucking loads of extra fuel and boost pressure at an engine, the remap companies don’t care what damage happens they cover their arses with disclaimers might as well just have a sign saying “pay up suckers”