Are Turbo Engines Reliable?

turbochargers are great they increase efficiency they add more power [Music] but are in fact the unreliable let's get into it now life's too short to drive boring cars so i make no bones about it i prefer turbocharged vehicles just because of the increased efficiency and more specifically the increased performance not everybody's looking for that and i want to share with you today the benefits of running turbochargers versus the benefits of running naturally aspirated that's without turbochargers or forced induction how the fundamental turbocharger works i'll give you some examples of both types of vehicles that have found success either way and i'll also be glad to share with you the bottom line are they unreliable let's go so which ones of these are turbocharges well let's take a walk no this one's not turbocharged either but the next one is so is the next one so is the volkswagen so is the van so is the s-class so is the e-class and yes the suv the bmw and the bands as you can see is v8 and it's twin turbocharged so you're starting to get the theme here most vehicles today are turbocharged and transitioning into hybrid and turbocharging and that's just the way it's going to be but let's walk through the basic fundamentals of how a turbocharger works every vehicle right now internal combustion engine consumes fuel it takes air fuel explosion and then the exhaust leaves the engine then it typically goes down to the exhaust system and out the back but now with the turbocharged vehicle it leaves the engine goes right away into a turbo starts turning that turbo the rest of the residual exhaust gases go out but that exhaust gas turbine is coupled up to another turbine on a cool side that takes fresh air from the outside and now it's turning because it's coupled and essentially regurgitates that fresher air now through an intercooler to additionally cool the temperature by by dozens of degrees before it puts it back into the engine so as you drive harder the turbo spins faster then you build boost even quicker of course more exhaust goes out there added boost means more pressure and more power so the obvious gains from going to turbo charging was they can go with a smaller engine less cylinders with a turbocharger and produce actually more output than an outgoing say larger engine for example you can go with a small displacement four-cylinder turbo engine and makes more power than an outgoing v6 that was naturally aspirated before it it would clearly make better fuel economy and as well in general in general cases it produces a better torque band and gives you better drivability at lower rpms all of this while trying to save the environment and reduce the harmful emissions to the sky that's what they say anyway for example we have a ford escape here and i'll give you the example of some engines that were available if you went with the base four-cylinder engine it was 2.5 liter and it made about 168 horsepower you could step up to a 1.6 liter turbo that made 173 horsepower or if you went to a 2-liter four-cylinder turbo engine ecoboost style it would be good for 231 horsepower which clearly shows a turbo 2 liter makes far more power than a naturally aspirated two and a half liter the two liter even makes more power than the outgoing v6 and then porsche and the 911 carrera realized their luck ran out with a naturally aspirated flat six they pushed as much thermal limit as they could get out of the flat 6 engine with up to 3.8 and 4 liter engine displacement then they had to go to something a little newer and in 2016 when they introduced the the 991 generation 2 is when they finally introduced a three liter twin turbo flat six for the naturally aspirated car yeah that's right it was turbo but it wasn't the turbo car that's because they needed to bring more power more efficiency to the game and they were out of steam with a naturally aspirated layout so performance and efficiency are certainly better out of a turbocharged car but what are some of the drawbacks on those vehicles well for one right here we have a bmw 750i that has the infamous 4.4 liter twin turbo v8 that's called the n63 one of the drawbacks is excessive heat under the hood and with all of that heat under the hood is bad enough in a standard vehicle like that but with bmw and that v8 they actually put the two turbos in the v of the engine to reduce the distance that the exhaust has to go to the turbo to get its spooling as well as reduce the distance from the turbo back into the intake manifold so it drastically reduces the turbo lag and ultimately improves performance but that unfortunately creates all that extra heat in places you don't want it starts melting plastics starts melting valve guide seals and now you start to look at excessive oil consumption electric failures hoses and plastic fittings all melting down and then it also takes a toll on the oil and unfortunately the oil runs the vanos which is the variable valve timing system which is your timing and then you can start having issues with that timing chain tensioners and of course the cleanliness of the oil in general takes a bit of a hit because of all of that excessive heat running through the turbo remember the turbo bearings are also lubricated by engine oil but excessive heat is controllable in some circumstances if you design the vehicle properly there is another drawback to having a turbocharged vehicle and that is back here right there we have the exhaust tips one and two right there so what's the problem with that well the problem is you don't get exhaust noise when you have a turbocharger feeding it because remember as the exhaust comes out of the engine it goes through a turbo first which essentially replicates another muffler in line that reduces the engine sound and if you like your performance exhaust sounds you're often going to take a little bit of a compromise because of a turbocharged installation turbocharged vehicles also require additional maintenance there's no skipping or extending your oil service maintenance because the oil is critically important it gets hotter not just because the extra heat under the engine but the oil that goes through the turbo cartridge to lubricate gets exposed to extreme heat as well as compressing the air and putting more air into the engine via turbocharging means that you're going to have additional heating in the engine anyway because like most race engines you either run turbo charging supercharging or you run a high static compression ratio means you're increasing the heat heat through the engine heat on the turbo heat throughout the system in general means it's much more important to take care of your maintenance and in short order another couple of drawbacks with turbocharging is far more complex you don't just have the turbo and the plumbing from the exhaust side as well plumbing to the intake manifold you have the intercooler you have waste gates that control and regulate the pressure that goes into the engine you also have the electronics associated and the tuning and the programming it's far more complex system than you get in a naturally aspirated engine we also can't forget the honda remember when the honda civic went with a naturally aspirated engine they were bulletproof and they ran forever then along came the 1.5 liter turbo engine that proved to be a real big problem because all of a sudden they have oil dilution issues that's right on cold engines when you have a little more expansion in the cylinder and direct injected you wind up putting extra fuel past the rings and into the oil capacity that then means that you start washing down cylinders you start diluting the oil and that can result in early deterioration of rod bearings and the bottom end of the engine now honda's been working on that they're getting it worked out but it has been a real issue also with turbocharged cars you have to heat them up a little bit before you get on it and you certainly want to cool them down before you turn the car off after a hard run on the freeway or the highway let it cool for 30 seconds to a minute if you're the kind of person that does short trips or you're on and off and you don't worry but you're just in and out of your car and you drive it rough definitely a naturally aspirated engine is the way to go now what are some of the benefits of cars like this what we have here is a naturally aspirated 3.5 liter v6 honda accord yes they're great they're ultra reliable and what are some of the benefits some people are going to immediately jump to reliability but that's not always in fact the truth however there are some benefits and what it means is less plumbing less parts and chances are less things to break and go wrong that's a win so it's going to be lower overall operating costs if you own the vehicle for an extended period of time five years ten years and beyond this is going to cost you far less money in the long run you're likely not going to have to be as strict with your oil services as you are with turbocharged vehicles you're not building or generating the heat under the hood that you would with a turbocharged car you're also not going to get the turbo lag when you punch the throttle it's going to be immediate go there's no turbo lag waiting for the turbo turbo to spool like you get in the turbo vehicles it's just going to punch and go it also potentially could be a lot easier for the diy-ers out there there's gonna be less equipment under the hood and probably more space to get at what you need to get out for example spark plugs and items like that are gonna just be a simpler vehicle to work on altogether it's better if you're doing short trips frequent little trips five miles 10 miles those kind of trips are hard on turbo cars they're kind of hard on diesel vehicles as well but naturally aspirated gas jobbies like we see right here no sweat just let it rip our turbocharged vehicles really that unreliable well generally not necessarily again if you design the car appropriately and if the manufacturer is legitimate for example porsche they know how to build a turbo engine lower compression ratio up the oil cooling management design a sturdier top end and overall improved cooling means you can have a very very reliable turbocharged engine and you can on the other side have a chevy cruze where it's poorly designed poorly constructed and it can be very unreliable on its own right but generally as a rule if you're talking apples to apples ford focuses ford escapes explores we also talk about the honda's naturally aspirated versus the turbo 1.5 and the bmw's a great conversation because the older naturally aspirated engines are easily more reliable than any of the late model turbocharged counterparts and with all of that said be sure to check out those two amazing videos hope to see each and every one of you real soon catch you then bye

Channel: ExoticCar PlayPlace

Views: 79,136

Keywords: turbo, turbocharger, twin turbo, engineering explained, how it works, automotive, cars, car, engineering, boost, engine, how cars work, horsepower, supercharged, engines, how turbo works, how does turbo work, how does a turbocharger work, how engines work, reliability, engine reliability, how does a turbo work, how a turbo works, turbo vs supercharger, turbo how it works, turbo cars, mercedes, porsche, exotic car play place, turbo lag

Id: _xYnXRqheoI

Length: 10min 4sec (604 seconds)

Published: Sat Aug 06 2022