gob4sho89
15+ Year Contributor
- 215
- 0
- Dec 31, 2006
-
Farmington Hill,
Michigan
It all started a while back when I traded a broken transmission for a blown SCM61. I saw some people were having their turbochargers rebuilt by Turbo Lab so I asked how much to replace the turbine wheel and rebuild it. They gave me a quote that sounded good, told me I should have it by the DSM shootout or right after, so I sent it out. Short version of this... I was jerked around for about 2 months before finally hearing they were having trouble finding the right parts and that it was going to cost over double the original quoted price + shipping. Finally after talking to them about it and explaining how unacceptable the way they handled it was etc they offered me the option of another turbo that would take the place of the SCM61. I settled on a 7 blade HX40 bolt-on, wg off O2 so it would bolt right in place for a price just a little bit more than my original quote. I thought this sounded fair, and was a good attempt at making everything right between them and myself.
So, about 3 months after I had sent the SCM61 out the HX40 arrived in the mail. I got in touch with TurboLab because I noticed there were not any balancing marks anywhere on the Compressor or Turbine wheel. They assured me that it was component balanced and then balanced as an assembly. I then asked about my oil feed setup, even though I had done extensive research on it already, just to make sure they approved of it, which they did.
Fast forward to when I got the car back together a little over a month ago. I took it for a test drive and everything seemed ok on the entire new engine setup. I spoke with a close friend who works in R&D with holset turbochargers and as a result I did some testing to insure proper oil pressure at the turbo. The results were good, a little on the high end but still in the range.
I drove the car around a little more then set out on my trip to Texas for the TX2K13 meet. Plan was to drive to Cleveland, Ohio and trailer from there but some people backed out the morning we were supposed to leave once I was already in Ohio... so I ended up driving the car to Texas. I made it to Southern Ohio and decide to start tuning a bit so the car would be ready by the time we got there. Started with a 3rd rip and everything was looking good, banged 4th and nothing. No boost, car struggled to keep speed at 70mph. I shifted to 5th still nothing. Pulled off the first exit and shut it off immediately. I opened the hood and was happy to see there were no holes in the block. The turbo was glowing red at this time. I fired the engine up and it idled fine so we decide to take off the intake pipe and check out the turbo.
It was difficult to spin, and when it did spin it contacted the housing and wobbled around so it was obvious something was seriously wrong with it. At this time we contacted a few of the turbo lab employees, and I believe it was Austin who I finally got on the phone. His first words were after explaining our situation were "what do you want me to do about it" and "what do you expect me to do about it". I then asked that he overnight me a replacement, as the newly rebuilt unit had failed under ideal conditions (fresh motor/fresh oil/perfect tuning) and his response was "I'm not in the shop until at least Thursday" and to paraphrase: "I don't have anything I can send out immediately".
So, we got in touch with Michael at Forced performance at around 11:30pm still on the side of the road. I only knew him from throwing back a few beers together at the dsm shootout. He said all they had in stock that would bolt in place was a FP Green, but then he offered they could make an FP Red first thing in the morning for me. So, he went to bed and we set our GPS to take us to Forced Performance which is kinda on the way to Houston.
We arrived late afternoon and the turbo was completed and it looked great. FP provided all the gaskets, new return line, 3 couplers, a section of pipe with the right bend and all the T-bolt clams we would need. They did not stop there; Michael offered us his personal garage to do the install. We drove to his house and put the car in the garage, then he gave us a ride to get dinner and pick up a few other small things we would need from the local parts stores.
Ok, so we get the turbo off and begin looking at it. Again, I did not see any balance marks anywhere. I do not like speaking for others, so I will let the people that were there with me state what they saw when looking at it.
We installed the new turbo and finished up around 2am. Then we were off to TX2K13. I will make another thread about our TX2K trip, but I'm going to try and keep this focused on Turbo Lab and my current experience with them.
I finally got around to sending in my turbo beginning of last week and they received it Wednesday, April 10th. They keep saying the turbo failed because I am running an inline filter which is too restrictive and starved the turbo of oil turning the shaft blue. I have a hard time believing this because the filter was installed when I did my testing, and the pressure was a little high but still in the range.
They also posted on their FB page the picture above of what they said is "my turbo" and stated it was my fault and it starved of oil. They also sent me text messages with pictures of what they were claiming to be my turbo, seen here
The problem is, these pictures were of a turbo that had a balance mark on the outside of the turbine wheel... which mine did not have. Also, in addition to this...
TurboLab keeps stating that the balance has nothing to do with it. Their reasoning/things they have stated....
1. A turbo that is not properly balanced will not make boost
2. They had a customer last week with the same problem also using an inline filter
3. It does not appear to be bent
4. Another person had the same problem
5. Not a big enough drain
6. The turbo is not in too bad of shape and the kit is useable, the wheel and shaft both look good
The above was all in text and FB message which I can post pictures/screen shots if need be but I do not think that is necessary. Then I learned of the following over the phone.
1. Running an inline oil filter can make a car shoot oil out the exhaust
2. They can check if the shaft is bent by spinning it in a drill and looking at it
3. Mine could not have been their fault because none of the other ones they built failed
4. They would rebuild it for the cost of the parts and shipping with the same shaft and wheel
Then I saw Ian Cole from turbo lab complaining about me on his fb page after a friend of mine told me about it... He said the following word for word.
"I doubt any Turbo company would talk their customer for 3hrs over phone about a lack of oil turbo failure. Argment- Turbo was not balanced, so oil was leaking past the seals due to vibration. Answer- Turbo is component balanced just the way it comes from holset. You're Earl's turbo filter is restricting oil pressure to turbo. Don't worry you find that out the hard way when you new turbo blows up because its not getting enough oil."
All I commented on this was that the conversation was only 48 minutes long, and that I doubt any customer of another shop would have stayed on the phone that long after hearing he could check if the shaft is bent by spinning it in a hand drill and looking at it.
Then, because I had been texting him prior to the phone call... I received a text from him, most likely on accident, that read "I made chad look little beeitch" That is some great customer service if you ask me. Trying to make a customer look like a b*tch being your priority, not solving the issue at hand.
Now all posts about it have been removed from their FB page and they refuse to call me as promised. I tried two times today posting a reminder to call me, and my number. Both were deleted within a couple minutes and still no call.
I was hoping some people with experience in building turbochargers and those involved could weigh in on all this. I am also hoping turbolab will be able to shed some light on what is going on, and do what is right in this situation.
This company also claims to buy from MHI and continues to sell parts as genuine MHI when it is really just a different china company, but that is another topic for another day.
So, about 3 months after I had sent the SCM61 out the HX40 arrived in the mail. I got in touch with TurboLab because I noticed there were not any balancing marks anywhere on the Compressor or Turbine wheel. They assured me that it was component balanced and then balanced as an assembly. I then asked about my oil feed setup, even though I had done extensive research on it already, just to make sure they approved of it, which they did.
Fast forward to when I got the car back together a little over a month ago. I took it for a test drive and everything seemed ok on the entire new engine setup. I spoke with a close friend who works in R&D with holset turbochargers and as a result I did some testing to insure proper oil pressure at the turbo. The results were good, a little on the high end but still in the range.
I drove the car around a little more then set out on my trip to Texas for the TX2K13 meet. Plan was to drive to Cleveland, Ohio and trailer from there but some people backed out the morning we were supposed to leave once I was already in Ohio... so I ended up driving the car to Texas. I made it to Southern Ohio and decide to start tuning a bit so the car would be ready by the time we got there. Started with a 3rd rip and everything was looking good, banged 4th and nothing. No boost, car struggled to keep speed at 70mph. I shifted to 5th still nothing. Pulled off the first exit and shut it off immediately. I opened the hood and was happy to see there were no holes in the block. The turbo was glowing red at this time. I fired the engine up and it idled fine so we decide to take off the intake pipe and check out the turbo.
It was difficult to spin, and when it did spin it contacted the housing and wobbled around so it was obvious something was seriously wrong with it. At this time we contacted a few of the turbo lab employees, and I believe it was Austin who I finally got on the phone. His first words were after explaining our situation were "what do you want me to do about it" and "what do you expect me to do about it". I then asked that he overnight me a replacement, as the newly rebuilt unit had failed under ideal conditions (fresh motor/fresh oil/perfect tuning) and his response was "I'm not in the shop until at least Thursday" and to paraphrase: "I don't have anything I can send out immediately".
So, we got in touch with Michael at Forced performance at around 11:30pm still on the side of the road. I only knew him from throwing back a few beers together at the dsm shootout. He said all they had in stock that would bolt in place was a FP Green, but then he offered they could make an FP Red first thing in the morning for me. So, he went to bed and we set our GPS to take us to Forced Performance which is kinda on the way to Houston.
We arrived late afternoon and the turbo was completed and it looked great. FP provided all the gaskets, new return line, 3 couplers, a section of pipe with the right bend and all the T-bolt clams we would need. They did not stop there; Michael offered us his personal garage to do the install. We drove to his house and put the car in the garage, then he gave us a ride to get dinner and pick up a few other small things we would need from the local parts stores.
Ok, so we get the turbo off and begin looking at it. Again, I did not see any balance marks anywhere. I do not like speaking for others, so I will let the people that were there with me state what they saw when looking at it.
We installed the new turbo and finished up around 2am. Then we were off to TX2K13. I will make another thread about our TX2K trip, but I'm going to try and keep this focused on Turbo Lab and my current experience with them.
I finally got around to sending in my turbo beginning of last week and they received it Wednesday, April 10th. They keep saying the turbo failed because I am running an inline filter which is too restrictive and starved the turbo of oil turning the shaft blue. I have a hard time believing this because the filter was installed when I did my testing, and the pressure was a little high but still in the range.
You must be logged in to view this image or video.
They also posted on their FB page the picture above of what they said is "my turbo" and stated it was my fault and it starved of oil. They also sent me text messages with pictures of what they were claiming to be my turbo, seen here
You must be logged in to view this image or video.
You must be logged in to view this image or video.
You must be logged in to view this image or video.
You must be logged in to view this image or video.
The problem is, these pictures were of a turbo that had a balance mark on the outside of the turbine wheel... which mine did not have. Also, in addition to this...
TurboLab keeps stating that the balance has nothing to do with it. Their reasoning/things they have stated....
1. A turbo that is not properly balanced will not make boost
2. They had a customer last week with the same problem also using an inline filter
3. It does not appear to be bent
4. Another person had the same problem
5. Not a big enough drain
6. The turbo is not in too bad of shape and the kit is useable, the wheel and shaft both look good
The above was all in text and FB message which I can post pictures/screen shots if need be but I do not think that is necessary. Then I learned of the following over the phone.
1. Running an inline oil filter can make a car shoot oil out the exhaust
2. They can check if the shaft is bent by spinning it in a drill and looking at it
3. Mine could not have been their fault because none of the other ones they built failed
4. They would rebuild it for the cost of the parts and shipping with the same shaft and wheel
Then I saw Ian Cole from turbo lab complaining about me on his fb page after a friend of mine told me about it... He said the following word for word.
"I doubt any Turbo company would talk their customer for 3hrs over phone about a lack of oil turbo failure. Argment- Turbo was not balanced, so oil was leaking past the seals due to vibration. Answer- Turbo is component balanced just the way it comes from holset. You're Earl's turbo filter is restricting oil pressure to turbo. Don't worry you find that out the hard way when you new turbo blows up because its not getting enough oil."
All I commented on this was that the conversation was only 48 minutes long, and that I doubt any customer of another shop would have stayed on the phone that long after hearing he could check if the shaft is bent by spinning it in a hand drill and looking at it.
Then, because I had been texting him prior to the phone call... I received a text from him, most likely on accident, that read "I made chad look little beeitch" That is some great customer service if you ask me. Trying to make a customer look like a b*tch being your priority, not solving the issue at hand.
You must be logged in to view this image or video.
Now all posts about it have been removed from their FB page and they refuse to call me as promised. I tried two times today posting a reminder to call me, and my number. Both were deleted within a couple minutes and still no call.
I was hoping some people with experience in building turbochargers and those involved could weigh in on all this. I am also hoping turbolab will be able to shed some light on what is going on, and do what is right in this situation.
This company also claims to buy from MHI and continues to sell parts as genuine MHI when it is really just a different china company, but that is another topic for another day.
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Look forward to building me a larger turbo soon.
