[BiturboS4] Turbo care

[Edwards, Dave]

15 minutes is excessive and could be counter-productive as it would
'heat-soak' the engine and other component could suffer.

Since the S4 has an oil temp gauge, it is better to use it rather than have
a fixed idle time. Before I fitted my afterrun pump timer, I used to make
sure that the needle was down to about halfway between the second and third
marks (not sure what temp that is as I can't remember and besides my gauge
is calibrated in centigrade anyway). Generally at most you would need 5
mins. Also it is MUCH better to cool down by driving: This gives you the
added cooling from the airflow into the engine bay.

However cool-down is only part of the story. More important is the warm-up.
Stressing the turbo whilst the oil is cold can really cause wear. I really
try to keep my revs low (below 2500) until the oil temp gauge reaches the
second mark.

Also consider that the turbos have a limited lifespan anyway (one turbo
company here suggests about 90,000 miles). In all likelihood the harder you
drive your car the shorter the lifespan. So how often do you use full boost?
And after driving on full boost a lot, do you drive moderately for a while
to give the turbos some rest?

Finally there's contributing failure modes such as air leaks - mainly the
infamous TBB. You can protect against these by regular checking of hose
clamps (don't forget the intercooler hoses) or better still install
something better like the APR bipipe.

Cheers,
Dave

By the way David, I've responded to your original post on Audi-Sport.net

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Message: 5
Date: Tue, 8 Oct 2002 08:39:38 -0700 (PDT)
From: scott dolan <scotdolan at yahoo.com>
To: BiturboS4 at audifans.com
Subject: [BiturboS4] Turbo Failure

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[ Picked text/plain from multipart/alternative ]
Does running the  motor at idle for a extra 15minutes after normally driving
condition really help the turbos last longer?