How To Make Your Modern Turbo Engine Last Longer | Are They Less Reliable?

turbocharged engines they used to be a thing of the past reserved for performance cars but slowly they started coming back coming back and now they're becoming the mainstream gasoline engine is a turbocharged engine in today's video I'm going to share with you five things that you should do to prolong the life of your turbo and your engine that is turbocharged right after this [Music] before we get started with the with the important things you should know what is a Turbocharger in case you're not familiar with that let me briefly talk about what turbocharging is in a very simple fashion but the reality they're a lot more complicated than that go back to the very Basics gasoline engines you need air and you need gasoline and the most thing important in air is the oxygen and you need something to IGN night this mixture which is the spark plugs the more ear and gasoline you put the more power you produce it's as simple as that it's a lot more complicated but that is A Simple Theory here you can easily add more fuel injector just let it spray more fuel but you can't force more air in other than what the engine is naturally going to take in until turbocharging came about basically what charging or charged engines are you are forcing air into the engine so you can add more fuel you have more air or more oxygen and more fuel you have more power that's the basic idea of charging an engine now turbocharging the exhaust has flow it's creating air flow they put a little impeller on the exhaust the exhaust as it comes out of the engine it's going to spin that impeller that impeller is connected to another impeller that's going to kind of a compressor it's going to compress the air and it's going to send it back into the engine that is the very basic premise of this turbo couple things about the turbo though that most people are not aware of turbos can spin at RPMs that are unbelievably High I mean you rev this car up at 4 or 5,000 RPM this turbo could be spinning at 25 30,000 RPMs that's how much these little guys spin the speeds they spin at which means they generate heat which means there is a slew of things that come from that heat they generate and the load that they have which is what going to take us to the first thing you should be know and you should do to take care of your turbocharged engine this is the most important thing about turbocharged engines oil maintenance folks in normal cars you should change your oil on time you should use quality oil you should not follow these long recommend recommended intervals and that cause all kinds of issues down the road but with turbocharged engines that becomes very very important the reason for that is aside from this oil cooling the engine lubricating everything in this it's actually used to cool the turbo and lubricate it as well the problem with turbos is they create so much heat and they have a lot of friction and they spin at very high speeds oil contamination is the number one thing that kills turbos and the second thing that turbos do is they heat up that oil a lot so you're going to wear that oil and wear the additives much rap more rapidly in a turbo engine folks I cannot emphasize how important it is that you're on top of your oil changes with a turbo engine and shorten these intervals folks I see manufacturers with turbo engines 15,000 M interval on that oil change I don't care how good that oil is please don't do that if you're in Toyota Lexus land this is what my channel mainly focuses on you must change that oil every 5,000 mil even less on a turbocharged engine 6 months no more even if you don't put the miles don't try to stay Within These parameters and it's extremely important on turbo engines the second thing is warm it up and cool it down just just like we talked about the importance of oil change intervals you also have to think of that oil going into this turbo see oil goes on the shaft of the turbo to cool down the bushings or the bearings and then to cool the turbo itself when you start your car in extreme cold weather unlike modern gasoline engines that are not turbocharged with turbocharged engines even if you have super thin oil you still got to give this engine a little bit extra time to warm up and it's not for the engine itself look modern engines warm up pretty quick but the oil you need to wait for that oil to actually warm up a little bit because when you have thick oil going to that turbocharger it's just not going to flow very well through these tiny little passages and off a sudden you floor this car you're not going to have very good lubrication on that turbo and that's what starts that premature wear on that and things kind of go downhill from there but if you must drive your car when it's really cold and you can't really wait to warm it up for whatever reason really take it easy on this car until the oil warms up see folks you look at the cooling temperature the gauge that you see on your car is the coolant temperature it is not the oil temperature oil actually takes quite a bit of time to warm up when it's super super cold so warm it up but more importantly than warm it up cool it down see turbos spin at very high RPM and in the opposite of the warm it up when things are extremely hot and you've been driving kind of Spirited or underload or you came off the highway when you're really pushing high RPMs that turbo is extremely hot you shut off your car right away as soon as you came from this kind of high low driving in very hot weather oil flow immediately stops and that oil is sitting in that very very hot turbo is basically going to cook give it some time and that repetition of cooking that oil is going to turn into sludge and it's going to literally clog the passages going to the turbo and then there it is there's no more turbo and we have major repairs ahead of us you got to let these cars cool down folks and if you can't for whatever reason I don't see a reason why you can't give your car a minute or two extra of your time to cool down by cool down I mean idle let it idle for a minute or two shut it off on high load high temperature if you can't do that the last few miles leading up to your stop really take it easy on this car just drive really low RPMs and it's not about you flooring the car RPMs especially if you drive a manual transmission keep your RPMs down because that is going to help that turbo cool down a little bit so the oil flowing through it is not going to just sit in a very hot spot and cook the third thing is you got to let the thing breathe turbocharged engines they will go through air filters a lot more than your normal car now air filter maintenance is important but in regular gasoline non non-charged engines you're not going to go through a lot of air filter unless you live in a really dusty area but you're going to notice with your turbocharged engine you're going to go through a lot more air air filters and the reason for that is you have a lot more suction because this turbo is pulling a lot of air and charging it into the engine it's going to pull a lot of debris a lot more than your usual car and if you live in this area with sand you really got to be on top of that air filter because that air filter gets saturated with sand sand will destroy your turbocharger very quickly and if it finds its way under pressure into your engine it's really going to wreak havoc be on top of that air filter a lot more than your regular non-turbo engine the fourth thing is Drive smart not hard kind of like work smart not hard don't be driving your economy turbocharged engine in your sensible family sedan or SUV like it's a race car that's the first thing the second thing which is the more of the smart part don't be driving in high RPM high load all the time just because o I have a turbo engine it can handle the power and has all this power actually keep your RPMs down in your normal commute especially if you have a manual transmission always be in a lower gear because even if you're just holding at high RPM you're actually spinning these turbos unnecessarily if you need to push the car because you need to pass somebody or you're just flat out racing it or however you want to drive it spiritedly that's fine but don't do that all day long because you're actually overloading this turbo or spinning it at very high RPM unnecessarily heating it up heating the oil doing all this stuff take it easy on your drive with a turbo engine when you're just cruising don't cruise at high RPM crws at low RPM especially in manual transmissions and the fifth one and the most important one don't go fast and furious on your Economy Car folks it is imperative that you don't carry get carried away with modifying your turbo car look we all are majority of us that watch car videos on on the internet we are car guys we love the little things that everybody else really dislikes about cars there is nothing cooler than a turbo car that every time you kind of push the clutch or let go of the gas you hear that giant whoo of the bypass valve releasing the excess pressure that is the coolest thing for car guys but don't go modifying your very sensible family hatchback or SUV to do that and the biggest thing is people who are into cars they'll buy these normal cars and they'll want to oh I want to hear the turbo I when hear it spooling and they do make very cool sounds but remember these are not performance cars you are modifying there are some of them that are you can do that but the normal cars they are not performance cars they're actually not turbocharged for the sake of performance they're turbocharged for the sake of having this tiny little engine that produces enough power for you to drive it and not feel like you have a very underpowered engine so they're actually pushed to the max by default that's just how they design cars these days so you go this are the common modifications for turbos you go put this aftermarket big air filter well the first thing is you increased the flow of this turbocharger and the second thing is that I see you put that cool bypass valve or worse a blowoff valve what that does is a bypass valve is okay because that's going to take the excess pressure and actually reroute it back but a blowoff valve in correct technical terms will release that air to the atmosphere not really recycle it see folks most of these modern engines are not your old Supra that's the bottom line these modern engines they have a mass something called a mass air flow that meters how much air is going into the engine so when it releases that excess pressure that pressure is supposed to wrap around and go back because that is called mirrored air but when you release it to the atmosphere you throw the computer off and kind of starts from the beginning okay I don't know what just happened and repeated cycles of that is GNA cause a lot of issues in this car that's the first thing the second thing don't please don't go and re after you watch this video don't go and put a manual boost controller what that does is it's a very simple device that manually controls how much pressure is this Turbo producing folks this was the coolest thing back in the day when you know the ' 80s and '90s turbo cars we used to do that it's the easiest mod you get a lot more power then two months later you figure out why it was not a good idea do not modify the modern turbo cars because they're not your '90s cool cars you manually interfere these engines don't have room for modification they're not meant for performance they're meant for fuel economy and efficiency not really for performance you go increasing that pressure on that turbo before you know it you have a hole in your piston because things ran way too lean cuz this the injectors can handle it everything else can handle it you can't just have a magic let's make more power cheap thing don't modify modern turbo cars unless it's a performance car and you know what you are doing and you understand the risks of liability issues don't go modifying the car even the slightest bit because that is the number one guarant gu aned way for you to have huge reliability issues and then that sound that whoosh sound and the spooling sound becomes really not worth it and lastly folks I I have to discuss this and share with you my opinion on are turbocharged engines less reliable than non-turbocharged engines there will be essays written about this and how modern technology and modern oils have gotten here and there the bottom line is the more stuff you have on your engine the more likely things will go south that's the bottom line because there's if we look at it from a kind of a stone age perspective there is more components there is more stuff that's going to need service one day one shape or form but if we come back to the modern era turbocharged engines operate at kind of a higher bracket of load let's put it this way you are forced air into this engine you are putting pressure into this Engine things will give and that's the reality yes turbocharging enges have come a very long way from the '90s and 80s where they used to be just extremely horrendous they've come a long way but they are still you will always have oil consumption with turbo engines there's just no way around it that's just how this works so going into a turbocharged engine understand you're going to get the benefit it's not all for nothing you're going to get a small engine that is efficient but it also have enough power to not feel underpowered but understand that you're going to have to put more effort into the maintenance of it into the care to make it last but eventually every single turbo will fail at some point I hope that point is long enough where you don't feel like we're barely at 100,000 miles and the thing is gone hopefully we get long times if you follow some of the important tips that we talked about in this video you will see high miles out of the original turbo but eventually something will happen and we're going to need to do something about the turbo or the associated components with it so to answer this question non-turbo engines will be more reliable longterm than turbo engines but is the gap very wide it is not very wide it is actually shrinking as technology evolve and as things get better and better and that is a god honest truth folks and to elaborate a little bit on the turbo engines will consume oil in case that got your blood pressure up turbos run at very very high temperatures that's just how they are and even though they have seals and they're these seals are supposed to hold the oil in they never do find me one single turbo engine out there that when you take the turbo inlet or the intercooler or whatnot you will not see oil sitting there they kind of exaggerate the blowby because they have pressure their PCV system is always loaded there will be some oil loss with turbo engines because the turbo itself will be blowing some of that oil straight into the intake and straight through the engine it's not that the piston rings will start by no the turbo itself will use some oil we're not talking excessive amounts but don't be going long well we shouldn't be going long intervals with turbo engines but if you do you got to check your oil because eventually it'll drop and don't be surprised with a turbo engine if oil drops that is just one of their natures and that is the reason why turbo engines will one way shape or form use oil or consume it and lastly before we wrap up this video I will talk about the very last thing which is should be obvious but I want to make sure if your turbo car takes premium fuel your sure way of destroying that engine is putting non premium fuel if your car doesn't take premium fuel there's absolutely no benefit in using premium but if it does you must use it with turbocharging because it will wreak havoc on the engine see regular cars non-t turbocharge that require premium when you put non premium they'll be under power they won't run very well but it's not very catastrophic unless you keep doing it for a long period of time but turbocharged engines it is catastrophic possibly very rapidly and the reason for that is when you put regular gas in a car that requires premium which has high compression and you are under boost which you are basically you have extra pressure coming in detonation happens and that combined with the pressure of the turbo creates the perfect condition for that piston to be melted or just break in half don't do that because that will not be a happy day and then all the few bucks that you save over the life of the ownership of the car by putting regular gas will not be worth it please if you own a turbocharged car if it requires premium put premium if it does don't and as simple as that folks I hope with the kind of the rampid application of turbo engines I hope everybody finds some use of this video follow some of these tips get long miles without any issues from the turbo engines and life is wonderful folks I hope this video was helpful informative I hope you learned something new if you like it consider giving it a thumbs up if you're not a subscriber consider subscribing to the channel check out some my other videos until the next video folks may the Lord bless you and keep you and you have yourself a wonderful day

Channel: The Car Care Nut

Views: 922,937

Keywords: modern turbo engine, turbocharged, modern engine, gasoline engine, turbo engine, turbo reliability, engine reliability, how to make your engine last, car care, the car care nut, car care nut, tccn automotive, car tips, mechanic tips, toyota mechanic, highlander turbo engine, toyota turbo engine, toyota supra, tacoma turbo engine, tundra turbo engine, turbo engine reliability, turbo problems, engine problems, car wizard, scotty kilmer, the car care nut reviews, toyota, diy

Id: Gn5hrhTEERQ

Length: 19min 0sec (1140 seconds)

Published: Sat Nov 11 2023