[Dmacc]

After only 17k miles, the wastegate on one of my turbos has managed to stay stuck open, I\'m going to be getting it replaced under warranty, but in the mean time, is it safe to continue daily driving the car? I know I\'ll be losing boost pressure, but is that okay?

[Haus_07]

If it were a single turbo set up, I'd say it shouldn't be an issue. But, since you have the twin set up, it might be a problem. The main thing that would cause me to be hesitant to drive it would be that one bank of cylinders (3ea.) is going to be getting boost from the properly working wastegate, while the other bank of 3 cylinders isn't going to be getting any boost. I don't know if the DME will take the open wastegate into account and try to balance it out or not. You could possibly be putting more pressure on one half of the engine than the other half, and that's not good. I think I would call the dealer, tell them what's going on, and see if maybe they can send a flatbed out to pick it up. Just my .02

[Haus_07]

I missed the part about daily driving. I thought you were just gonna try and limp it to the dealer. No, I would not drive it as a daily driver. You will be just asking for trouble, not to mention the car is gonna run like shit. Get it into the dealer, and get yourself a loaner. That's what the warrenty is for!!!!

[MKR_DmD]

Park it. You would have to drive the car under no boost conditions which is hard, when it is designed to do it.

Get loaner from the dealer. You don't want to mess up something else and have the dealer deny the work.

[CSL335i]

If you have faulty wastegate, than you shoud drive very-very moderatly until you change the faulty one.
When only one turbo works fine, and the other does not, than the good one has to be work much harder (instead of the faulty one) to provide the given total boost required by the ECU. It may means in your cases that the good turbo will do twice as much work as before.

[Joshboody]

cylinder distribution will be the same... turbo air paths converge before the IC. part throttle should be ok for driving, until you can take it in.

How do you know it's stuck open... that's the mechanical default?

[GeorgiaTech335coupe]

If you don't build a lot of boost you should be fine. Just drive like a grandma and stay out of boost. If you try to drive too fast, you'll just go limp from underboosting anyways. I would drive it as little as possible, but if you need to, you should be fine as long as you drive slow.

[OfourTHREEfive]

People are overexagerating. Drove my 1j with a stuck open every now and then. Just dont rev it out, not that big a deal.

[Jeff@TopGearSolutions]

You can drive just stay out of boost. Although a conservative gent would say park it.

[Dmacc]

I can tell by the exhaust tone and how audible the turbo noise is. I'll need to go back to stock before I bring it into the dealer.

[Javier]

same thing happened to me, i only used the car for short trips before i got it into the dealership, i'm pretty sure the car goes into reduced engine power mode and opens the other wg to compensate.

did your 1/2 engine light come on?



btw, how did it turn out at the dealership? did they fix/adjust the wg or did they end up having to replace the whole turbo?

[NiVeDh]

Originally Posted by Haus_07

If it were a single turbo set up, I'd say it shouldn't be an issue. But, since you have the twin set up, it might be a problem. The main thing that would cause me to be hesitant to drive it would be that one bank of cylinders (3ea.) is going to be getting boost from the properly working wastegate, while the other bank of 3 cylinders isn't going to be getting any boost. I don't know if the DME will take the open wastegate into account and try to balance it out or not. You could possibly be putting more pressure on one half of the engine than the other half, and that's not good. I think I would call the dealer, tell them what's going on, and see if maybe they can send a flatbed out to pick it up. Just my .02

Not true at all.

[melmo]

I had a similar problem and drove it for awhile with the issue. I had the rattle and apparently one wastegate wasn't closing, but somehow I wasn't getting a warning light. Both turbos were replaced under warranty.

As Joshboody said, the turbo paths converge, so it's not like you'll only be boosting half the engine. More like the whole engine will be boosted half as much. Or something like that

[Bamaben]

One of my vacuum tanks failed and it went to limp mode so I can't see this being any more harmful.

[cn555ic]

Check out the wastegate solenoids. Might be faulty

[Wedge1967]

Originally Posted by Haus_07

If it were a single turbo set up, I'd say it shouldn't be an issue. But, since you have the twin set up, it might be a problem. The main thing that would cause me to be hesitant to drive it would be that one bank of cylinders (3ea.) is going to be getting boost from the properly working wastegate, while the other bank of 3 cylinders isn't going to be getting any boost. I don't know if the DME will take the open wastegate into account and try to balance it out or not. You could possibly be putting more pressure on one half of the engine than the other half, and that's not good. I think I would call the dealer, tell them what's going on, and see if maybe they can send a flatbed out to pick it up. Just my .02

This quote needs to go into the record books... LOL Haus, when you figure this one out, let us know.

[Tiny Chainsaw]

Originally Posted by Dmacc

After only 17k miles, the wastegate on one of my turbos has managed to stay stuck open, I\'m going to be getting it replaced under warranty, but in the mean time, is it safe to continue daily driving the car? I know I\'ll be losing boost pressure, but is that okay?

I know this might be a dead thread, but what ended up happening? The same thing is happening to my car n54, no CEL, 17K miles on the car, but now my car is behaving normally and I got a foreman to test drive it and he said it felt fine.

Could it be possible that the waste gate got unstuck? Or somehow the DME managed to compensate for the turbo that is stuck?

[Dave W.]

Originally Posted by Tiny Chainsaw

I know this might be a dead thread, but what ended up happening? The same thing is happening to my car n54, no CEL, 17K miles on the car, but now my car is behaving normally and I got a foreman to test drive it and he said it felt fine.

Could it be possible that the waste gate got unstuck? Or somehow the DME managed to compensate for the turbo that is stuck?

What makes you think there's something wrong? You said there's no codes, behaves normally, and a foreman thinks it's fine. Can you tell us what it's doing wrong?

[MAC335i]

Originally Posted by Haus_07

You could possibly be putting more pressure on one half of the engine than the other half, and that's not good.

[Dmacc]

Originally Posted by Tiny Chainsaw

I know this might be a dead thread, but what ended up happening? The same thing is happening to my car n54, no CEL, 17K miles on the car, but now my car is behaving normally and I got a foreman to test drive it and he said it felt fine.

Could it be possible that the waste gate got unstuck? Or somehow the DME managed to compensate for the turbo that is stuck?

My buddy and I got under the car on a lift and were actually able to get it to unstick, never made it to the dealer, same waste gates now at 45k miles. They never stuck again after messing with the actuator.

[Tiny Chainsaw]

Originally Posted by Dave W.

What makes you think there's something wrong? You said there's no codes, behaves normally, and a foreman thinks it's fine. Can you tell us what it's doing wrong?

Less boost, less power overall, and I have throttle lag now. I gas it all the way in 4th going 50 and the car goes nowhere until 1-2 seconds later.

I just know there's something wrong lol. I'm pretty sure it'll show up again later though so I'll just see for now..

I just wanna find out what happened to OP.

[bmwturbopower]

Blast from the past, but I'm in the same boat. Going to go under the car and see if I can get the arm/wastgate to do anything. Dealer is quoting 6K