BMW 525D turbo charger problems.......can anyone advise?

[aircool]

Our trusty 525D Touring has fallen into the hands of the BMW dealership for some significant repairs (that's another sorry story) and the 'loss of power' I mentioned to them has just been diagnosed as turbo failure. I am being told that turbos on these cars cannot be repaired. A new one being £1200 for the unit + £300 labour.

Can this be right? Can this be true - even?

Was thinking of taking it away from them and to an independent, if it can be sensibly repaired.

Does anyone have any experience of this? New and uncharted territory for me.

Prefer older cars........................

[Nige]

I'd be shopping around at some specialist for a better price.

[Ian Donkin]

My old 525D Touring had a turbo (at 132,000 miles) - totally gutless when the old one failed; I mean lethargic like you can't imagine. I sourced a brand new turbo from a friend in the trade for less than £500 and my local indie at the time (ex BMW franchise) fitted it for about £180 all in with an oil service too.

If it is the turbo, you shouldn't drive very far with it gone as they can start sucking oil into the intake system and destroy themselves - and if your car is automatic you will be powerless to stop it... then you will have a big bill!

[butzsi]

Do a google search for exchange turbos or find a BMW forum that can suggest a good supplier, or try eurocarparts to see what prices they offer.

I needed a turbo for my Vectra C and found that it was about £200 cheaper to buy from a Main Dealer than from any independent source

Chris

[Simon Rudge]

Hiya,

The frequent problem with BMW turbos is the breather gets blocked, leading to crankcase pressure, which then slows the flow on the turbo return. Slow death for the turbo follows.

For a repair, try contacting Turbo Dynamics, 01202 487497, ask for Tom. They do a cost of repair service and try very hard to help. They are in the process of sorting out an old Garrett unit for me.

Hope this helps

Cheers

[pmjt]

Where's smallspeed when you need him?

Don't get it done by the stealer - get it exchange / repaired. As Ian says, not an uncommon thing sadly.

P

[aircool]

Dear DDKers

Thanks so much for your speedy and considerate responses . I'm a bit stuck with this really - I need the car on the road as quickly as possible for my family and, from what Ian Donkin says, it could be very risky to drive it - especially to Dorset (from East London) where Turbo Dynamics seem to be based. The car has only done 65,000 miles - it's an automatic and kicks down ok but the engine just has no boost . Have given up overtaking.......

Looked on a BMW forum and seemed to be full of buffoonery. Strange place.

[Nige]

I'd ring round, find a good BMW indie (there must be one near you, there's about 10 near me even in Derby) and get a quote and book it in. You might even be able to blag a courtesy car. If not, assuming you get a quote circa £500-700 you're still quids in, compared to the dealer price, even if you have to hire a car for a few days.

Swapping a turbo over isn't rocket science so I'd even stray from a specialist of the marque.

[Del]

There is a very good BMW specialist is Leicester, in fact there are a couple of very good indy's.

Trouble is, they are in Leicester and you are in East London! AND you need the car back on the road asap! Wish i could be more help.

[smallspeed]

Where's smallspeed when you need him?

Don't get it done by the stealer - get it exchange / repaired. As Ian says, not an uncommon thing sadly.

P

sorry, blackbelt training!..

yep, quite common on these; dealers can't be arsed replacing breather filters and the oil feed to the turbo gets bunged causing premature wear on the bearings.. I'd tell BMW to sod off personally, and have a look for a new turbo yourself. If you're ok with spanners changing it yourself isnt too hard, or get an indie to do it; i'd think 4-6hrs max

if you're replacing the turbo have a look for an uprated turbo from the e60 also; not the electronic one, but the mechanical one (do a search on bmw5.co.uk and you should find some info.. I think they're about £350 - 400 normally and apparently give you some improvement in all areas for the same price as the std one). Also get the e60 breather filter (again bmw5 has all the part numbers and info, sorry i don't have time to post these at the mo) as this has longer service intervals and was the BMW fix to stop the turbo-deaths!

while your indie is doing this work might also be worth getting the swirl-flaps removed and blanked off; parts can be brought from a seller called something like "sparksandnoise" from ebay, and its another common engine-killer on BMW diesels.. just check you acctually have them first!

if you want any more info drop me a PM; i should be back to my normal job (chatting up the accountants and surfing the net) by late afternoon

[Bruce M]

No personal experience but Birds have a very good reputation for servicing.

They are based near Heathrow, if that is accessible for you.

If you need to order genuine BMW parts, get a quote via BMminiparts.co.uk (or com?). They can supply any BMW part with a big discount.

Otherwise, exchange via Turbo Technics?

[smallspeed]

vortex oil seperator from the e60 is part number 11127799366 from BMW. Costs about £20 i think, and well worth fitting inplace of the paper filter the e39 uses; its part number 15 here..

REAL OEM

you might also want to consider an EGR bypass while you're doing this work; it will reduce crud going into the engine, and also lower turbo-temperatures. Costs about £30 for a proper bypass pipe and takes 1/2hr to swap out.. if you're replacing the turbo (or having it replaced) then you're going to be taking those bits apart anyway so makes sense to do it while you're in there

if you've not already done so, have a read up about swirl flaps too.. only fitted to autos, but around your mileage they can become killers (turbo, pistons, valves, the lot, all in one big bang! )

turbo's have to be totally knackered to not be rebuildable; it needs the bearings to have gone enough that the impellors hit the inside of the housing which is quite a lot of end float or sideways movement. Assuming this hasn't been done 250-500 for a full warranted decent rebuild and prob the same again to remove and replace (8-12hrs)
If you're happy twirling spanners then its about a 3.5 spanner job on the haynes scale of difficulty, and there are a few guides around on how to do it. wil save you 1/2 the cost of the work i would expect, plus if you can live without the car for a week gives you more options of where to get the rebuild done. Will prob take the average home mechanic a day to remove and a day to refit, but its much easier if you can get under the car - jacks, ramps, whatever..

Few quotes from bimmerland and bmw5 that might help..

I had a call from Cats & Carbs uk. They said that they could rebuild my existing turbo within 24hrs for between £125-£350 plus carriage. Anyone heard of them or used them ? Full 12 months guarantee. They say they do hundreds for Audi dealers

I'm weighing up the pros and cons of recon, new + bmw new parts. So far recon looks like about £450+vat. A new garrett from essex turbos at £599+ vat + a genuine bmw sourced via an indy at £1300 inc vat!

Just received a quotation from Germany (turbolader) for 660 euro's + shipping for a brand new Garret turbo unit and they even quoted the same part numbers as Garret and bmw.
Quite a substantial saving considering the cheapest in UK has been £595 + vat so a saving of approx £250. Delivery within 2 days quoted

Link for turbolader... http://en.turbolader.net/

Hope some of that helps..

One other thing to consider, if the turbo seals/bearings have gone badly you might have quite a bit of oil in the cats. These are bloody expensive to replace, but if they're not too bad they can probably be removed and dried out then re-fitted.. if they're totally shot i'd go for a bypass pipe; about 1/2 the price of replacing with non-OEM cats, plus you don't need them on a pre 2004 diesel car.. a decat brings a few additional benefits incl. about the same additional power/torque as a remap, reduced turbo temperatures, and reduced spool-up time. overall quite a good mod to do, especially on these cars where the turbos get a hard time of it

if you're in london i can't really help recommend anywhere, but pop a post on bmw5 and im sure someone will be able to help

b

ps.. in BMW's defence, they are correct - the turbo has to be replaced as a complete unit by them. They show the whole turbo as the lowest service level so they wouldn't have access to parts to rebuild it for you. Having said that its a standard garrett turbo so a third party can (and do) rebuild them. Its also worth remembering that most if not all of the "new" turbos available for the e39's now (including the ones from BMW) are infact rebuilds as Im pretty sure they stopped manufacturing them in 2002 and switched to a new version with electronic boost control. They were used on most VAG, BMW and Merc diesels around end 1990's and early 2000's though so plenty available