I think I might be able to guess the answer to this. On the way to the airport a couple of weeks ago the turbo on our 2005 Ford Focus 2.0TDCI blew. Made it the last 50 miles and parked the car up. Came home yesterday and drove 200 miles home. Now, is it worth looking to replace the turbo and will I have done way too much damage to the engine?

how did this “blow” manifest its self…..

as in – if it was truly blown you were not driving anywhere.

based on that its unlikely you have damaged the engine.

The car lost power when in the fast lane. I pulled over and it kept running but needed a lot of revs to get it moving. Once in 4th and 5th gear it ran OK, but had very limited power and acceleration. In 1st, 2nd and 3rd it was a challenge to keep it moving. Coming home, it took about 15mins to start. Lots of smoke out the exhaust and the drive home was very stressful, but stuck close to a Royal Mail lorry which helped pull me up the hills on the motorway.

I’ve looked on ebay and could probably get a used turbo for £100-ish, but I know in my heart of hearts that I’ll probably just be throwing money away. It’s been a good car but it is 11 years old now.

Edit….. I was to slow typing!
If you do replace the turbo I believe you’ll need to clean the oil sump out and flush oil through the system. There could b little tiny bits of metal in the system…!

Does the Ford engine have an EGR valve as those symptoms you described were the same on my Saab a few years back.

Did it every 40-50k miles. New valve was £50

Does it make a loud siren type noise when accelerating? If not can you hear the turbo spool up (whistle)?

Loose/split boost pipe or sticking turbo actuator would be my first port of call, then check small vacuum pipes are all connected. Check both pipes either side of the intercooler for metal swarf. If the boost impellor is wrecked it will be in bits all through the pipes, engine flush needed as MartynS said.

Edit: could also be sticking turbo vanes.

I’m going to go with blown boost pipe.

If your impellor was in bits you would know about it.

If your oil seals went you would know about it.

Don’t fire the parts cannon at it without having someone who knows what they are looking at takes a skwatch you may spend money unnecessaily.

First step would be take off the pipes and have a look for debris though. Costs nowt.

Boost pipe +1.

Had exactly the same symptoms, RAC man took 10mins to reattach.

I’m going to go with blown boost pipe.

This, because when mine went, this:

If your impellor was in bits you would know about it.

Not sure who was more surprised, me or the car I was in the process of overtaking in the Ogwen valley, that was suddenly faced with lots of oil and smoke a-la 007. Once my car ran out of momentum, it wasn’t moving anywhere under its own steam. That was a Mondeo with the same engine as yours I believe.

Agree with others, check the pipes from my experience of the same symptoms on a Mondeo. There are other possibilities; actuators, sensors etc.
A “blow” turbo would involve an awful lot of smoke – seals/bearings giving up the ghost.

Thanks all – I’ll see if I can find the boost pipe and also try and get it to a local garage for a look.

My Vectra did the same. It was a split on the small vacuum hose. Took them ages to find it, but when they did the fix was cheap.

As others said check the turbo to intercooler and intercooler to manifold pipes first.

Get someone to rev the engine (gently) while the bonnet is open and listen for whistling noises and also look for signs of oil around pipes. Common place to go is on the inside of elbows so you might need to molest the pipes a bit. Do so with the engine off though so you don’t get your hand caught in a belt.

There will be a bend in the boost pipe where oil will collect and slowly soften the rubber leading to a split, this will open up when the pressure builds from the turbo and dump the boost pressure. It’s about 80 quid from a dealer and about an hour to change if you can’t get it up on a ramp. You would know if your turbo had let go, so would your engine!

My Peugeot turbo centre section cost £100 off Ebay. If yours is smoking (White) and there’s no oil in the engine. Thats because the oil seals have gone and the exhaust is full of oil.

From the symptoms you describe, the car put itself into limp-home mode. There could be many reasons for this, and not necessarily related to the induction.

Get to a garage and they’ll plug their doo-da in and diagnose the fault.

Same vintage tdcii here, with 150 k on clock . Fingers crossed for you that it is an easy fix. Get some rubber gloves on . All those pipes will be oily . I replaced my turbo pipe as it split but syptoms were less pronounced that yours..

Turbos failing in the older Focus engines are very common and usually go like yours has. You need a new turbo and oil feed pipes plus the sump off and the whole oil system cleaning out.

hebdencyclist – Member
From the symptoms you describe, the car put itself into limp-home mode. There could be many reasons for this, and not necessarily related to the induction.
Get to a garage and they’ll plug their doo-da in and diagnose the fault.

Na, doesn’t sound like it went into limp home mode if he was still able to rev the bollocks off it. When my fiesta went into limp home mode it limited the revs to 2000 or so.

Sounds similar to an issue my mate had with his Audi, as other have said it was the boost pipe blowing off.

Did lead to an interesting conversation with another guy as to how his 2 litre tdi golf engine was far superior to the 2 litre tdi engine in the Audi (similar ages) 🙄

“Turbos failing in the older Focus engines are very common and usually go like yours has. You need a new turbo and oil feed pipes plus the sump off and the whole oil system cleaning out.”

that would be the 1.6 variant i believe.

that would be the 1.6 variant i believe.

Mine was a 2.0 130 BHP

2006 1.6 owner here. I’ve done a lot of reading on this since it’s clear it wasn’t fords finest hour. It’s a combination of dirty running engine (deliberately, for better emissions) throwing soot back into the system via the egr, a small oil volume and an extended service interval provide time for sludge to build up in the turbo feed line.

There are some other factors like loosening injectors allowing post combustion products to enter to the top of the engine and worsening the situation.

But, it sounds like a boost pipe.

I just repaired my boost hose after similar symptoms