Fuel for Thought
New Turbocharger
From the end of December and into January I spent much of my time going into and out of Florida. I didn’t fight it, because everywhere else was under bad weather. My last trip out of Florida was with a load to Texas which coincided with my February jury duty. The plan was to freight my way back to Michigan after jury duty, so I could change my serpentine belt and look for the oil leak. On the way to Texas the van started going into something that resembled limp-home mode. The turbocharger seemed to not be kicking in and the transmission bogged down and could barely pull the van above 30 mph. I could get up to speed, and maintain highway speed on flat ground, but anything else was a struggle. Restarting the van would sometimes reset things and for a while I had normal power. Sometimes there was a check engine light and sometimes I got a code that indicated low boost pressure. I added this to my to-fix list hoping I could make it to Michigan for work at my preferred shop. After jury duty I made it to St Louis without freight or power problems. I got a load from St Louis to Detroit and no issues the entire trip until on the property at my delivery. The van wouldn’t shift above second gear. No problem—I could get to the dock in second gear. After delivery the van started back in normal mode, but on the street outside the customer it did the second gear thing again. I pulled over, went out of service and started figuring out whether I could reach the Novi Hoekstra shop in second gear. The van started normal again, so I headed to Novi. The van worked okay, so I stayed on the road and continue on to the Grand Rapids Hoekstra shop without putting my feet down. As is typical with today’s too-smart-for-their-own-good vehicles, the shifting problem wouldn’t duplicate at the shop and wouldn’t even generate a code. I had the other work done which included finding the ellusive oil leak, but still no repeat on the shifting issue. I drove around town the rest of the day and stayed out of service the following day, and after another 30 mile test run managed to get the system to bog down in the limp-home-like mode. I headed straight to the shop, left it running and had them witness the problem. This time the shop scan of the computer indicated a failed turbo controller. Turbo and controller come as one part, so I ordered the assembly. It’s about ten loads since and back to making money. Post-analysis of the turbo by my co-tinkerer shows that the turbo bearing was near the end of its life as well.
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