Need some advice,whose at fault

[Cesarlcase]

I'm not sure if this is the right place to post this, but since It's turbo related,I figured I would place it here. Anyway, here is my situation. About 2 weeks ago I had my car fully built with new everything for the motor. The turbo was damaged so I took it to a turbo repair shop, who built rebuilt my turbo to spec with brass parts (identical to garrett rebuild parts.) So after the turbo was built I took it back to the turbo shop and they installed it. Next day was dyno day, when I arrived I noticed everything was a mess my coolant reservoir tank was sitting on top of my intake broken, so i had to fix that on the spot and i also noticed my boost controller was missing and my wastegate wasn't connected. So the mechanics still felt it was safe to put it on the dyno. So the car is finally on the dyno now the engine is on and they decide to connect everything,or so i thought. They decided to zip tie down everything besides the vac line going from the turbo nipple to the boost controller. I guess they didn't know, but they did a few pulls like that and everything seemed fine. So i drove home next day, newly rebuilt turbo had shaft play! Went back to the builder who popped my hood and saw that the wastegate wasn't connected and claimed that was the reason. Went to the shop and claimed it was his bad build that caused it despite the fact it was perfectly balanced and used high quality parts. The builder open the turbo and showed us signs of oversees, my tuner who was with me builds turbos to and tried to find any other cause for the sudden shaft play and couldn't find anything either...turbo well lubricated just had small rings along the shaft and some other mess that the builder says was because there was no wastegate. What do you guys think, I need some advice.

 

[m1nd64m3]

What rebuild kit was it? I hope it wasn't an eBay kit.

What turbo is it?

To be honest there really is nothing you can do, cars break, shit happens, it's the name of the game. You just gotta suck it up and move on. Its a risk you take with having different shops do all your work, I prefer to do things on my own so I know what's going on around my car. Modifying cars becomes an expensive habit when you're paying for labor all the time, and it takes the fun out of it. There is a certain sense of accomplishment when you do a bunch of things to your car and see it along the whole way. I am by no means knocking any shops, many do amazing work.

 

[Cesarlcase]

What rebuild kit was it? I hope it wasn't an eBay kit.

What turbo is it?

To be honest there really is nothing you can do, cars break, shit happens, it's the name of the game. You just gotta suck it up and move on. Its a risk you take with having different shops do all your work, I prefer to do things on my own so I know what's going on around my car. Modifying cars becomes an expensive habit when you're paying for labor all the time, and it takes the fun out of it. There is a certain sense of accomplishment when you do a bunch of things to your car and see it along the whole way. I am by no means knocking any shops, many do amazing work.

Your definitely right, Shit does break, but not that fast. My question is if you remove your wastegate from the turbo, and your boosting it hard,what damage can occur? Because that's pretty much what happened here. It's all high quailty stuff, nothing made from aluminum. Yeah, although irrelevant, I agree that doing your own work is fun and all but I have other obligations and I've never did a motor swap before and don't really have the time/know how to do that kind of work.

 

[BogusSVO]

Sounds like you got lucky that all you busted was a turbo and not your whole engine.

Who is at fault... I would say you.

You saw things were not right under the hood, but you did not step up to make them right.

You say the overflow botle busted, and the missing MBC, but you went ahead and did the dyno runs, and drove the car.

You should have stepped back as said, "This is not right, I see this right now, what else is messed up?"
You should have aborted the dyno run, called the guys who installed the turbo, asked about the missing parts, and told them to fix what was wrong.

 

[stuckwithgsx]

I agree with bogus. If you seen things weren't right and continued on with the dyno run then it's all your fault. I personally wouldn't go back to that dyno shop since they were willing to run your car like that as well. They should have known better too, but it is not their place to deny you services if you insist on them.

 

[m1nd64m3]

If your wastegate was not on the turbo (assuming internal), you would have a hell of a time building boost because the flapper door would allow exhaust gas to bypass your turbo. If your trying to say that the vac line wasn't connected then its possible, but you should have a boost gauge and it should have been instantly recognized that you were over boosting. What brand turbo was this? If it was an ebay turbo then its expected, and I know PTE turbos seem to have problems with their non ball bearing center sections.

 

[knochgoon24]

Possible oil contamination?

 

[Cesarlcase]

Sounds like you got lucky that all you busted was a turbo and not your whole engine.

Who is at fault... I would say you.

You saw things were not right under the hood, but you did not step up to make them right.

You say the overflow botle busted, and the missing MBC, but you went ahead and did the dyno runs, and drove the car.

You should have stepped back as said, "This is not right, I see this right now, what else is messed up?"
You should have aborted the dyno run, called the guys who installed the turbo, asked about the missing parts, and told them to fix what was wrong.

I connected the bottle and i said i thought they connected everything,at least i thought. Like they strapped the car down on the dyno and then started connecting things in a hurry. And if i didn't say anything, jypothetically speaking, I still wouldn't be at fault because I paid them for their services but i infact did aware them. I forgot to mention that boost cut was set at 20lbs

I came to the conclusion that I will message Garrett and precision... Whatever information they give me I will use in case I have to go to court. That's why I'm here also, to gather up as much info as I can. So please don't over analyze anything.

 

[Tyeler18]

You didn't check to make sure it was all hooked up? There seems to be some misinformation here and confusion. What was missing, and what wasn't hooked up?

From your description I'd say you're at fault. You didn't make sure things were right prior to dynoing.

 

[Cesarlcase]

You didn't check to make sure it was all hooked up? There seems to be some misinformation here and confusion. What was missing, and what wasn't hooked up?

From your description I'd say you're at fault. You didn't make sure things were right prior to dynoing.

I said they were connecting it while it was strapped down but i guess they didn't securely fit that line down. My car was there for 3 weeks wasn't like I brought the car from home to there shop to get it dynoed. Everything was supposed to be connected when i got there. Makes sense now?

 

[m1nd64m3]

Look up others experience with the precision non ball bearing turbos on here, many have been failing prematurely.

You will waste more money going to court than it would cost to just buy a new turbo. It could've been the turbo rebuilders fault, the shops fault, or your fault since you drove home on it. Also you supplied the turbo to the shop so they have no reason to accept blame for the turbo going bad after you left the shop and went home in the car.