Turbocharger life expectancy?

[Roadtrek Adventuous RS1]

How many years or miles can you expect from a Mercedes Benz Sprinter turbo?

My rig is 11 years old with 66,000 miles....I realize that it's still 11 years, but, I didn't expect it to fail at this mileage....

Yes, I get all of my service done annually with oil changes, so, maybe it's just the years?

Is this just par for the course?

[booster]

Turbochargers live by oil, and die by oil, in many cases. Rarely driven vehicles can be more prone to oil related turbo failures because of the long time they sit draining back and starting quite dry until the oil pressure comes up. The newer, water cooled, ceramic bearing units are much more durable than the oil sleeve bearing, oil cooled turbos I put on hot rods in the past. Add to all that the fact that diesels can have fuel dilution issues, which we have heard of with Sprinters on this forum and the turbo life can be very shortened.


150K on turbos is not unusual these days in warm areas of the country for sure. Cold weather starts make for slower lubrication them in the cold parts where we are.


There are "preoilers" you can put on engine so it has oil pressure before the engine is started. Personal experience has convinced me it increases engine and turbo life by a bunch, maybe double.

[Roadtrek Adventuous RS1]

Thank you. I don't know how much money I want to throw at the "pre-oilers" as you mentioned. I've heard about them on big rig diesels...

I live in California and the climate here is easy on cars....

So...you didn't answer my question about the 11 years.... what do you think?

We do get extremely hot temperatures here in Southern California and I always let the turbo cool down after running it by idling a few minutes........

Of course I purchased my RV in 2017 with 26,000 miles so I have no idea what the original did....

[booster]

As I said, long times and infrequent driving can shorten life, but there are way too many variables to put a number of years on any given turbo even if you have a good idea of how it was treated. I had one of my sleeve bearing oil cooled turbos that was still good when I sold the car after nearly 30 years. The other one died earlier because an oil line got plugged when the oil filter broke internally. The engine had a preluber the entire time.



As they say, it all depends, but your miles are on short side for most failures and the time probably on the longer side vs the miles. Did they autopsy the turbo to see what happened? That can be important to know if there is something visible that happened.

[Roadtrek Adventuous RS1]

They told me that the bearings failed on there was wearing on the fins or something..... they used my case and replaced everything inside with brand new parts.

It was an emergency situation....I actually broke down on the road and luckily just barely got through the desert. These guys knew exactly what was wrong and were able to source the parts and get me back on the road. I was lucky for that.

Prior to that, we were hearing a noise lit a dentists drill on takeoff, but, no one wanted to try and figure out what it was.... they said, it could be just about anything and you're paying us for our time to try and chase down a problem and we don't know where to look first.....

Even if they were able to tell me...the outcome would have been the same.. I had no alternative but to get it replaced..

Most of the mileage I've put on my RV has been longer trips.. not short distances.

[SteveJ]

Only 66k miles in eleven years, it's been doing a some sitting.

[Roadtrek Adventuous RS1]

You know what.... you might be right?? I hadn't considered that....

How often should I be driving it?? How many times per week or month??

It does sit for a while and then we take it out on long distance trips.....

I've purchased it with 26,000 miles five years ago and we've put just over 40,000 miles on it....I try to drive it at least twice a month...... sometimes going 50 miles... round trip....

[SteveJ]

Originally Posted by Roadtrek Adventuous RS1

You know what.... you might be right?? I hadn't considered that....

How often should I be driving it?? How many times per week or month??

It does sit for a while and then we take it out on long distance trips.....

I've purchased it with 26,000 miles five years ago and we've put just over 40,000 miles on it....I try to drive it at least twice a month...... sometimes going 50 miles... round trip....

You are cooling it down before shutting it down, a good thing.

Hopefully you are taking it easy for the first 10-20 miles after cold start up.

Hopefully you are using the correct oil.

Hopefully you have an EGT gauge and are not running too hot on it. I'm not familiar enough with MB to know if the engine control systems eliminate high EGT temps.

Following the above would be helpful for extending turbo life.

A pre oiler would also be helpful in that regard, I think. Hey, it's only money.

[booster]

A couple of additions to the information here.


The ceramic ball bearing, water cooled tubos are much less prone to "coking" the oil in the bearing at shutdown as the bearing housing is surrounded by cooling oil. The older oil cooled, sleeve bearing units were famous for this issue and required idling after driving for a minute or post oiling to survive long term. That said, even with the water cooled units it is good to let them idle a minute after a very hard pull, like going up a steep grade or towing something heavy, especially in hot weather.


Preoilers are not all that expensive and also not all that expensive to have installed if you go with the accumulator tank version of them. Electric pump versions like you see in the big engines are a bit more expensive up front and installation can be quite a bit more.


Here is a typical accumulator unit that is used on many race and hotrod applications that tend to sit unused a lot, just like RVS, and have dry start issues also.


https://www.classicindustries.com/product/ml2qt.html


I would guess this system could be purchased and installed for about $500 so very cheap compared to the cost of a turbo and installation.



Personally, I would not have any turbo setup without prelube on it as they also majorly reduce engine internal wear also.

[SteveJ]

Originally Posted by booster

A couple of additions to the information here.


The ceramic ball bearing, water cooled tubos are much less prone to "coking" the oil in the bearing at shutdown as the bearing housing is surrounded by cooling oil. The older oil cooled, sleeve bearing units were famous for this issue and required idling after driving for a minute or post oiling to survive long term. That said, even with the water cooled units it is good to let them idle a minute after a very hard pull, like going up a steep grade or towing something heavy, especially in hot weather.


Preoilers are not all that expensive and also not all that expensive to have installed if you go with the accumulator tank version of them. Electric pump versions like you see in the big engines are a bit more expensive up front and installation can be quite a bit more.


Here is a typical accumulator unit that is used on many race and hotrod applications that tend to sit unused a lot, just like RVS, and have dry start issues also.


https://www.classicindustries.com/product/ml2qt.html


I would guess this system could be purchased and installed for about $500 so very cheap compared to the cost of a turbo and installation.



Personally, I would not have any turbo setup without prelube on it as they also majorly reduce engine internal wear also.

That pre luber is a pretty slick setup.

[booster]

Originally Posted by SteveJ

That pre luber is a pretty slick setup.

It is very slick, I think also. It is a brand I hadn't seen before but came up on a Google search when I looked for a current preluber example.


The only thing that has been a downside to the accumulator type units in the past was that it takes two of them if you also want to post lube the turbo to prevent the infamous coking up of the bearings. With the water cooled units everybody uses now, that really isn't an issue any more as the systems, if well designed will gravity flow the engine coolant through the bearing housing after shutoff so it stays well below coking temps.



Of course, as I mentioned earlier, it really isn't all that good to stop any engine, gas or diesel, turbo or not, immediately after a very hard pull as a lot of the parts will be very hot at that time so a bit of oil cooling on them can prolong life.


I have considered putting an accumulator type on our 07 Chevy Roadtrek and that unit in the link may convince me to actually do it, as it looks very well done.


As a reference point of benefits of prelubing, although it is a single data point so far from conclusive, after I had a pump type on my 600hp twin turbo 340CID 1970 Dodge Challenger a few years, I ran a test on a new 1992 Ford Escort wagon I had just bought for commuting. I had worked with the preluber company quite a bit on the Challenger best practices installation so had contact with one of the designers there and called him and asked if he wanted me to test a preluber on the Escort over full engine life. He did want me to and I got a unit for their cost and put it on when the car was just barely past breakin.


That old Escort was around for 18.5 years and 210K miles of Minnesota cold weather commuting before the it rusted in half so bad it got dangerous and broke the rear brake lines. I quit changing the oil at 200K miles as I knew the time left was pretty short. It went the last 10K without needing oil added and it still was pretty clean even. It had no lifter ticks at any rpm or temperature, even -20*F starts, and had never had any repairs on the engine at all, not even a valve cover gasket. Timing belts and water pumps as preventive were done.


The luber company was out of business or bought out by the time the Escort died, but I did tear down the engine anyway for my own curiosity after checking the compression on it, which checked at high mid of range and very even between cylinders. All the oil related parts checked nearly new for dimensions and surface finish, crank, bearing clearance, lifters, valve guides, camshaft, oil pump. Cylinders had less than .001" taper and out of round. I was very surprised that a short trip, cold weather, commuter, small, engine would check that well. That engine, if continued on the prelube pump, probably would have gone near 400K, best guess, unless it had a metal fatigue failure. It was run the whole time on off the shelf dino oil at 10-30 in the summer and 5-20 in the winter.

[rvsprinterguy]

Sorry if I missed a detail somewhere... Is your Sprinter engine a 4-cylinder or a six? (Seems too new to be a 5).

[engnrsrule]

I have a 2006 RoadTrek (really a 2005 sprinter) with the 5 cyl mercedes diesel.

While this may not speak specifically to turbo longevity, I do note that for this engine/year the Blue Book says "for diesel, do not deduct for mileage"

That said, a couple years ago I lost turbo boost. Had about 135k miles at that time. I googled the symptoms and the OBD diagnosis codes and it advised "failed turbo resonator."

That ended up only being about a $400 repair and it runs great. Its amazing to me what a nothing burger this engine is without the turbo.

Truth spoken in preceding replies about oil!

[beauregaard]

193k on our 2008 RS and still {knockOnWood} on the original turbo. We let it warm up maybe 10/20 seconds on cold Ohio winter days and maybe the same at shutdown.
Mileage is a mix of hiway and around town but we rarely let it idle for more than 5 or so minutes. Other than that, I drive it like it was stolen.

[rvsprinterguy]

Only 61k on my 2004, but it gets driven regularly to keep the tires round, plus an occasional longer trip somewhere in Northern California.

I've had other turbocharged vehicles and put mileage in excess of 100k without them failing. I'm of the perhaps naïve opinion that upon start-up, pressurized oil enters the turbo bearings before exhaust pressure builds enough to spin the turbine. I do let the engine "rest" a bit before shutting down, when I've been driving the van hard.

Not long after I bought the van, I read bad things about the OEM turbo resonator and replaced it with an aluminum after market part that lacks the troublesome weld.

[booster]

Originally Posted by rvsprinterguy

Only 61k on my 2004, but it gets driven regularly to keep the tires round, plus an occasional longer trip somewhere in Northern California.

I've had other turbocharged vehicles and put mileage in excess of 100k without them failing. I'm of the perhaps naïve opinion that upon start-up, pressurized oil enters the turbo bearings before exhaust pressure builds enough to spin the turbine. I do let the engine "rest" a bit before shutting down, when I've been driving the van hard.

Not long after I bought the van, I read bad things about the OEM turbo resonator and replaced it with an aluminum after market part that lacks the troublesome weld.

The oil pressure normally won't come up and feed the turbo until well after the unit has spun up. i-3 seconds is probably about what an engine in good shape would take as the usually have to fill oil passages and bearings first before the pressure will rise. Exhaust pressure at the turbo is nearly immediate and the turbine starts spinning even before full pressure is reached. 100K is probably a reasonable guess on mean life but it varies so much it is hard to tell and the life range is large.