Turbocharger reman continues to face many challenges – but it is up to the market to take advantage of any opportunities and maintain quality standards, says Darren Johnson, Sales Manager of Melett.

The decline of diesel engines across Europe remains a concern. According to industry data expert GiPA, with the fuel type widely demonised, several countries saw diesel’s share of total registrations drop by 20% or more between 2014 and 2018.

But there are still millions of diesel cars between one and five years of age with their ‘prime’ workshop years ahead of them. With nearly half of the diesel parc falling into this category, GiPA fully expects the importance of diesel to the aftermarket to increase in the coming years, as more and more of these younger bracket vehicles age.

This, coupled with the growth in gasoline turbos does mean that, at the point of entry, turbos have a bright future.

 

Read more – https://www.rematec.com/news-articles/ensuring-viability/

 

[Source – Rematec News, October 2019 –  https://www.rematec.com/news-articles/ensuring-viability/]

 

Our Shaft & Wheel and Compressor Wheel searches allow you to explore the parts we have available using component dimensions.

Where can I find this search…?

Click Advanced Searches on the parts search page

Parts Search

By simply entering your chosen dimension/s into the fields provided, the results will show you the components we have available.

Don’t have what you are looking for?

Request Development and it will be reviewed as part of our development  programme.

For further information contact Melett via melett_enquires@wabtec.com or to order melett_sales@wabtec.com T: 01226 320939

 

What is overheating?

Overheating is a term used to describe components that have been subjected to abnormally high exhaust temperature or insufficient cooling.

Causes of overheating:

• Hot shut down
• DPF issues, such as regeneration, resulting in increased exhaust gas pressure and temperatures which leads to overheating of the turbine side of the turbocharger
• Remapping, chipping or over-fueling

Find out more about Overheating…

To find out what causes overheating, the signs of oveheating and how to prevent overheating. Check out of latest out our latest Common Turbo Failure documents here – Read More

 

For further common turbo failure topics, check out our other helps guides

Common turbo failure modes create much discussion between our customers and technical department. To help identify common failures in warranty situations and to provide advice on how to prevent future failures occurring, we have created a series of help guides:

Overspeeding

Foreign Object Damage

Oil Leaks

Oil Contamination

Insufficient Lubrication

REA / SREA

 

For further information on this or other topics, visit www.melett.com/technical or contact our Technical team via mel_techsupport@wabtec.com

 

Oil leaks can cause catastrophic damage to the bearing systems and occur within seconds of the turbocharger commencing operation.

Oil  leaks  can  be  caused  by  a  variety  of   factors,   the   main   factor   being   incorrect   pressure within the compressor and turbine housings.

When a turbocharger is installed correctly, it should NOT leak oil, however, there can be cases where oil leaks occur.

Find out more…

To find out more about the main causes and signs of oil leaks, as well as, information about how to prevent future oil leaks – check out this article!! – Read more…

 

For further common turbo failure topics, check out our other helps guides

Common turbo failure modes create much discussion between our customers and technical department. To help identify common failures in warranty situations and to provide advice on how to prevent future failures occurring, we have created a series of help guides:

Overspeeding

Foreign Object Damage

Oil Leaks

Oil Contamination

Insufficient Lubrication

REA / SREA

 

For further information on this or other topics, visit www.melett.com/technical or contact our Technical team via mel_techsupport@wabtec.com

 

It is not uncommon for some turbocharger repairers to compare turbo products visually and assume that if the products look the same, then the products have been manufactured to the same standards. Here, we offer  advice as to why  visual comparison cannot be relied upon when considering the quality of products.

When new turbocharger components are under development, the cost of producing new tooling for that component can be very expensive. To aid development of components, manufacturers will often source  parts from foundries that already have existing tooling for those components.

For such high-volume turbo products, foundries will develop their own tooling, enabling them to sell their castings to many different manufacturers. This enables the manufacturers to price their parts more competitively as they have saved in tooling costs.

So, what are the differences between these ‘quality’ turbo products?

Even in cases where the same tooling is used, a foundry will produce castings to the specifications of their individual customers. These requirements can include completely different material specifications. Different post-casting processes (such as heat treatments or surface treatments) and different ‘pass/ fail’ quality criteria.

For example, quality manufacturers, including Melett, specify 100% high pressure oil/water gallery testing on all bearing housings; an extra cost which some lower cost manufacturers often prefer not to pay. Quality manufacturers may also specify strict dimensional controls on turbine wheel castings to ensure the balance quality of the end product. This means that the foundry typically incurs extra costs as it has a higher scrappage rate of substandard parts.

Another difference can be the tolerance levels requested on the design drawings. High tolerances on drawings mean more parts do not meet strict machining criteria. This again increases scrappage rates. For instance, for every 100 pieces produced, a manufacturer may have as many as 30 out of tolerance parts. This means that these 30 pieces will be scrapped and the production costs of these added to the overall price of the remaining 70 pieces.

To reduce such out of tolerance failures, some manufacturers will accept tolerance changes which reduce the machining quality required. In the above example but with lower tolerances, 85 items of the 100 pieces produced could meet the revised criteria, with only 15 pieces scrapped. Therefore, whilst the cost of the parts may have dropped, the component quality will also have reduced.

 

More than meets the eye

When comparing a high quality product with a lower cost alternative, it is risky to assume that they are equivalent parts, even if they look  the same. As explained above, it is important to consider more than just the visual appearance of a component. If it appears to be cheap, it can be worth asking; ‘how do the manufacturers make this product so cheap?’ and ‘what corners may have been cut in terms of quality to achieve that low cost?’

More Examples