[M-sport-Piper]

Right, I’m going to tell you the entire full story to see if anyone knows what my problem is? Ok, when I first purchased the car I noticed it wasn’t nearly as frugal on diesel as my old 53reg e46 320d. When I purchased the E90 it had just received a new turbo, which come from Essex turbo's, this is still under warranty until May. Anyway I thought I would have it remapped to see if that helped but the remap didn’t do much, it didn’t even improve it’s performance so took it to another company called AMD in Essex to get it remapped again. After they put it on the rolling road they told me the map that I already had had the same sort of figures as the maps they would advise. The car made 182.3 bhp on their rollers and they noted it should be making between 200-220 bhp.
AMD had a look around the car to see if they could find an issue. After one and a half of them messing around, they said the turbo actuator hasn’t been set up properly during its replacement or possibly the vanes were sticking.
That cost me £120 to find that out.
Anyway got on to Essex Turbo’s and they said that was highly unlikely, but to whip it off and send it back to them and they would take a look.
I don’t wish to take the turbo off and for them to tell me it’s just fine.
Does anyone know of any other cause???
The car sometimes feels quick, but on other occasions feels slow.
I have had the car on diagnostics but it came up fault free.
Just getting p****d off with it now!
Any help in trying to sort this problem out would be greatly appreciated.

[mrwindymiller]

Right, I’m going to tell you the entire full story to see if anyone knows what my problem is? Ok, when I first purchased the car I noticed it wasn’t nearly as frugal on diesel as my old 53reg e46 320d. When I purchased the E90 it had just received a new turbo, which come from Essex turbo's, this is still under warranty until May. Anyway I thought I would have it remapped to see if that helped but the remap didn’t do much, it didn’t even improve it’s performance so took it to another company called AMD in Essex to get it remapped again. After they put it on the rolling road they told me the map that I already had had the same sort of figures as the maps they would advise. The car made 182.3 bhp on their rollers and they noted it should be making between 200-220 bhp.
AMD had a look around the car to see if they could find an issue. After one and a half of them messing around, they said the turbo actuator hasn’t been set up properly during its replacement or possibly the vanes were sticking.
That cost me £120 to find that out.
Anyway got on to Essex Turbo’s and they said that was highly unlikely, but to whip it off and send it back to them and they would take a look.
I don’t wish to take the turbo off and for them to tell me it’s just fine.
Does anyone know of any other cause???
The car sometimes feels quick, but on other occasions feels slow.
I have had the car on diagnostics but it came up fault free.
Just getting p****d off with it now!
Any help in trying to sort this problem out would be greatly appreciated.


Not much help with the issue I know, but it may help for people to get their heads around.

[M-sport-Piper]

^^^^^^^^^^^^thanks for that worded alot better

[mrwindymiller]

No offence meant.........Happy New Year

Hope you get some sensible advice from the forum guru’s.

[jjbirch]

best way is reset it on the motorway and do 70 for while and see what u get i get about 45ish 35ish around town

[Jeff123]

Cruising at 70mph should produce some pretty healthy mpg's - easily 50+.

[jjbirch]

06 pre eds wont maybe 47 but i never do 70 lol

[Dr Dave]

bloody 4 cylinder soot-chuckers

[jjbirch]

Originally Posted by Dr Dave

bloody 4 cylinder soot-chuckers

feck off and pay your car tax lol

[dim_sum]

got the same problem butt dno what it is ......motorways are fine so i think its driving style...... anyone no how to drive eco???? lol

[Bungle009]

Eco drivong = keeping the engine in its sweet spot where max torque is delivered, typically aroung 1500 - 2000 RPM. Also high speed kills economy so if you cruise at 85, try 75 instead. Your economy will improve significantly.

It is very dull.

[chesney72]

Sounds like AMD found the problem. If you don't trust Essex Turbo's to give you an honest diagnosis then send it to another turbo place although I would send it to them first.

If it's not making boost then other than a boost leak it will point to the turbo. Other problems which AMD probably checked are the MAF, MAP and boost solonoid......although if it comes back clear after diagnostics then I suspect the turbo even more.

[FPO]

A similar thing happened on my audi a3 2.0tdi. The turbo blew on it and since ive had a new refurbished turbo fitted, the fuel consumption has been pretty poor in comparison to how it used to be.

e.g before turbo broke - average 48 mpg combined easily
after new turbo fitted - average 41 mpg steady driving

I think some damage may have happened deeper in the engine after my turbo minced itself up and has basically hampered the engine ever since. However no faults can be found within basically taking the engine to pieces which im not prepared to do on 110,000 mile car.

Do you know the reason why the turbo was replaced on your car?

[F104]

Having your own cheapest diagnostics capability would be a scangauge (£120?), even if you only plug it in for running diagnostic. It doesn't provide much more usefull data than turbo boost, but then turbo boost tells you a lot. You should see up to 1.5bar boost on full throttle, and it should be there immediately when you put your foot down

Much better is the Bavarian Technics cable. Cost me just under $300 from the US, but you need a laptop/ notebook which allows you to install the software (for free from the site - but a company laptop most likely won't). It can do much more, and shows faultcodes you won't see on OBD readers like the Scangauge.

[gIzzE]

Not being a smart arse here, but you live in Gillingham right? Which is about 40 miles from Essex Turbos.

Rather than fuck about paying for diagnostics and then ignoring the results, why don't you just drive over to Essex Turbos and get them to check it out for you??

[iken]

I am having exactly the same experience as you, turbo whinged on 320d and replaced with an Essex Turbo re-con one since they seem to have a better reputation on different forums. The car struggles to get going under 2k rpm before I can start hearing the turbo weezing and drinking diesel like a fish, and feel like I am driving a non-turbo tractor at a moment.

I've traced all other possible causes (cleaned EGR Valve, checked stats, MAF etc), and eventually got a USB cable from fleebay to get the error codes - bingo! 449A Air Pressure Actuator - which googles translate to the turbo actuator.

Essex turbo hasn't been helpful to be honest, even with an offer to drive over for them to take a look at it to see if there's a chance the electronic actuator can be changed without another 5 hours of labour.

They are insisting to only see the turbo only, and have booked in PMW (12 miles away) to take a good look before whether the turbo needs to come off. If that's the case, I am driving it over to Witham and get it replaced and pop it back on.

I would have gone for a OEM ones if I've read your story earlier... did you get it sorted in the end?

[Subzero2003]

Not sure if this helps (source Essex Turbos)

Fitted to: BMW 320d 2.0L D & BMW 120d 2.0L D

BMW Turbo with Electronic Actuator – 49135-05671 - 7795499K10

(Genuine Mitsubishi Part)

Common Reason for failure

We are often told by customers that they have a faulty electronic box on their BMW turbo. Fault codes are found on the electronic actuator. (This is the little black box on the side of the turbocharger shown in the picture above but is sometimes referred to by customers as an electronic activator). The fault codes are normally picked up when a diagnostic test is performed on the vehicle and this type of failure showing fault codes on the electronic actuator are often as a result of a blocked engine breather assembly.

Why?

The engine breather assembly found on top of the rocker / cam cover commonly get congested / blocked causing the engine to breathe heavily. This congestion then causes increased crank case pressure which creates an increased back pressure in the sump forcing the oil back up the oil return pipe to the turbo. Over a period of time this escaping oil can build up carbon around the variable vane assembly restricting their movement (i.e. sticky vanes). This restriction affects the operation of the electronic actuator generating the fault codes picked up on the diagnostic test mentioned above.

In some cases the outcome is a destroyed turbo and generally the driver has been experiencing issues such as a lack of power with the vehicle and the vehicle smoking from the exhaust leading up to the failure.

[bmwm-power]

is your car an auto or manual mate

reason i ask is i have a 320d m sport auto e90 and my dads got a 320d se auto e91
both are autos and locally thats what we get; around 31 mpg but very short start stop journeys . say between 1-5 miles. get alot better on the motorway with the cruise on
and from what ive read online thats whats expected