Destroyed turbo from a Forester XT - pics

[jogosub]

Originally Posted by Vitaliy

It's true! But (for example) maybe he is a racer.

Could be, although not that many people "race" Foresters ... but - I may be wrong!

[Seabass]

That's from contact with the housing, not from heat. So not so much melted as ground down. The usual cause, as has already been mentioned, is from oil starvation or contamination destroying the bearings. This allows the turbines to contact the housing at ridiculously high rpm. It also likes to send chunks of metal into the engine.

This is why we check our oil and change it frequently!

[susiemk]

Originally Posted by DrD

One exception was the 02-05 WRX (with the 2.0 engine) - it used a Mitsubishi TD04

2.5l Foresters & 06-07 2.5l WRXs also used the Mitsubishi TD04 - it is actually a very nice little turbo (08 WRX may have also come with the TD04 as rated HP was in the 22x range) for the non power hungry.

Mitsubishi turbine wheels are made of inconel - they can take all the heat your engine can throw at them (your aluminum pistons will melt before the turbo does).

Seems that the owner of this turbo was a "racer" since the e-housing in the upper right corner of the first pic is ported - my guess is constant overboosting caused bearing wear, which caused turbine wheel damage, which caused 1/2 shaft modification (the turbine shaft that connects to the compressor wheel is MIA)...

[rico567]

Over the years, we've owned four SAABs with turbos, driven hundreds of thousands of miles. Whatever the other issues with those cars, nary a problem with the turbos. All but the last two were Garretts, this one and the one before it Mitsubishi.

As has been allluded to in this forum, there are three things that are important in avoiding turbo trouble: oil, oil, and oil.