Had a Cummins ISX eat a turbo on I-35 near Austin last Tuesday

I was hauling a load of lumber through Austin when the turbo let go at mile marker 238, sounded like a damn jet engine then nothing but black smoke. Cost me $3,400 to have it towed to a shop that found the oil feed line was clogged from sludge, which I should've caught on my last PM. Has anyone else had issues with these ISX turbos failing early if you skip the 50k mile oil analysis?

3 comments

3 Comments

rowan_thomas845d ago

Sludge killed mine at 210k miles because I skipped the 50k analysis too.

kimmurphy5d ago

Trust me, @taylor.reese, you do NOT want to learn this lesson the hard way. I had a buddy with a 4Runner that went 300k miles no problem, so I thought my car would be fine too. Figured I'd save a few bucks and skip that 50k analysis. Well, that Plan saved me about 80 bucks and cost me a whole engine rebuild at 220k miles. The sludge had built up so bad that the oil couldn't even flow right anymore. That analysis would have caught it early, but by the time I heard a knock it was too late. Really makes you wonder how many people are driving around with ticking time bombs under their hoods, you know?

taylor.reese5d ago

Yeah that got me rethinking my whole approach too.