First of all, apologies if i have posted this in the wrong place.

I'm just after a bit of advice on where i stand or what i can do?

I bought a reconditioned turbo for just over £700 back in mid November whilst i was building my engine. We got the engine back in the car in Jan and I had the car mapped for running in on the 24th of Jan. It was mapped at 0.6bar with a 5k Rev limit and all seemed well. Just over 500 miles later i went for my full map on the 19th of Feb.

It got up to something like 386odd HP, the turbo failed and you could really hear the impeller knocking against the housing. The mapper and driver suggested that either the bearing as failed or the impeller has snapped clean off.

We got the car home and removed the turbo to find the front nut loose and there was really bad play in the shaft back and forward and side to side. I contacted the guy i bought it from and long story short he blamed it on my car saying it must not be feeding it oil. I then sent a video of oil coming out of my oil feed whilst cranking it over and heard nothing since.

Last Friday i took the car to be mapped with a brand new SC42 making good power and no problems whatsoever, nothing else was changed on the car. Needless to say I've done quite a lot of miles over the weekend enjoying the car and everything is spot on, so clearly not an issue with my car.

The guy runs his own company and the turbos are reconditioned by a friend of his, who runs a separate company. They did offer for me to send the turbo to them to be checked, but i didn't want to do this i wanted an unbiased opinion, so i'm contemplating sending it off to turbo dynamics for a report.

So do i have a leg to stand on with regards to potentially getting a refund/small claims or am i stuck with a very expensive paper weight?

 

You won't get anywhere in court/claims without giving the seller chance to inspect the turbo and make good the situation with any repair or replacement.

According to the Sales and goods act the seller must be given the first chance to sort out the problem.

 

I figured that would be the case. It's just awkward knowing that the guy who rebuilt it and would be inspecting it is a close friend of the seller. Do you reckon it's worth getting Turbo dynamics to look at it first before sending it back to the seller?

 

That's what I would do... Get a report from Turbo Dynamics then send Turbo back.


They will probably repair it and hand it back rather than refund you though. Good luck..

 

Sounds good advice that

 

As a guy who has his own Turbo re-manufacturing business, sending your turbo to a third party before returning it to your seller first WILL invalidate any warranty or claim that you have with him, in or out a court of law, regardless of what advice you're getting on here.

You appear to have had the normal response from the "not very good" turbo guys who run their own businesses but then get their mates to do the work for them, so he's not really in the turbo business then is he? £700 for reman turbo sounds like a lovely rip off I wish I charged that for my turbo's thats a wacking great profit margin I'd be on the beach by now living it up lol.

If the turbo you bought has security paint on it, its there for a reason, we can tell if one of our units have been tampered with and if he finds out he can VERY easily say it was tampered with before you fitted it, which is why its failed, they'll always blame your oil but to say it without seeing the turbo shows how professional he is, a loose nut could be or sounds more like a manufacturing issue than a turbo/oil issue really ,but he should have at least looked at it first without assuming or blaming you. A loose nut "usually" only happens if the shaft has snapped as it fastens on in reverse etc etc, too long to explain on here, but also check if there is any nut lock etc on what is left of the thread because turbo's do need locking or the nut "will" come off it. But please do not assume taking it to a third party will get you anywhere, you'll get yourself in worse trouble doing that, it'll be an instant blame game which you won't win. Check your warranty paperwork as mine states "any tampering of security paint etc" will invalidate any warranty, and it will stand in small claims court, as bad as it sounds I feel you've lost your money anyway as he's already made his mind up its the fault of the oil, pretty much sounds like every turbo ebay seller out there I'm afraid matey?

 

Cheers for the replies guys. I've messaged the guy today just simply saying that I've bolted an SC42 on with no issues and asked what he want's to do. We'll see.