Anyone got a turbo charged car engine?

[Madmog]

DH is interested in a car with a turbo charged engine. We've had two people tell us these engines are a lot less reliable. Does anyone have one in their car? Has it been ok? If not, what age/mileage before you had problems?

Most modern cars, especially diesels, are turbocharged.

Turbo has more bits to go wrong but in any properly maintained modern car the electrical/control stuff is more likely than the engine/ turbo itself.

Main thing with a turbo is not to turn it off straight after it's been working hard - give it 30 seconds after you pull into a services - not an issue if you are stopping in a town!

Diesel Particulate Filters are way more trouble than turbos (and compulsory for diesels from about 2009)

Mine is but I’ve never given it any thought (so I guess it hasn’t caused problems so far). 7 year old Volvo.

Pretty much every diesel has a turbo and a lot of the small modern engines have them. They're fine but do add an extra thing to go wrong and also people tend to mistreat them. If you've been going along the motorway and pull into a service its best to let the engine idle for 5 minutes to allow the turbo to cool off, this will really extend the life.

My issue with then in small engines is if you do a lot of motorway miles, then a larger naturally aspirated engine makes more sense

Most modern cars, including almost all diesels, have turbocharged engines. The main exceptions would be small cars more than 5 years old with petrol engines.

I have owned 4 cars with turbos (2 Mercedes, 2 BMWs) over the last 16 years, have driven them for hundreds of thousands of miles and have had no issues with the turbos.

Sorry, hijacking your thread OP. We're looking at a four year old car with a turbo charged engine, but it uses petrol. Interested in further comments.

@ifonly4

Depends on the car. For example the VW 1.6 FSI is an absolute abomination of an engine and it doesn't have a turbo.