Top 5 Signs your Turbo is Failing

The Subaru WRX and STI have always had turbocharged engines.  In recent years, Subaru has started to use turbocharged engines in more models and other manufacturers have as well because of the power and efficiency that turbocharges can add.

Turbocharged engines can make more power because of the additional air that the turbo supplies, but because of this, if anything does go wrong with the Turbo, then you will usually feel the issue when driving fairly quickly.

A Turbo generally lasts a long time, but it is fairly common for us to get a call from a customer that thinks that they are having issues with their turbo, or that their turbo has failed.

There are some common signs that your turbo is starting to fail such as, smoke from the exhaust, excessive oil consumption, the turbo not making boost, or the turbo making odd noises under acceleration.

Where things get tricky is that while these symptoms can indicate a failed turbo, each of these symptoms can also be cause by a number of other issues that have nothing to do with the turbo directly.

The goal if this video is to go into detail about these specific issues, and how to diagnose them to find out whether you are actually having an issue with your turbo, or could the issue be something much simpler to fix.

Thanks for watching and Stay Tuned!

In this episode:

00:00  Intro
00:49 - What does a Turbocharger do?
01:19 - Top 5 Signs that your Turbo is Failing
03:37 - Diagnosing Low Boost Pressure or Low Power
05:38 - Diagnosing Smoke coming from the Exhaust Or Smoke at Startup
07:50 - Diagnosing Excessive Oil Consumption or Oil in Intercooler
09:45 - Diagnosing Noise Under Boost
11:28 - Diagnosing Shaft Play 
13:42 - Final Thoughts