Kia Sportage and Hyundai Tucson / ix35 CRDi Turbo Repair

Most people who search for a Sportage turbo price are holding a quote, or expecting one. This page explains what that quote is made of, which of its lines change when you choose a rebuild over a replacement, and which turbocharger your car is likely to carry.

Which Sportage, Tucson and ix35 Engines This Covers

Kia and Hyundai fitted these SUVs with three turbocharged diesels sold under the CRDi name: a 1.6, a 1.7 and a 2.0. The Sportage and the Tucson share these engines, and the trade listings we reviewed name the Kia and the Hyundai together on every diesel turbocharger in the table further down.

The ix35 is the name Hyundai used for the model between two generations of Tucson. The parts listings file the ix35 and the Tucson side by side, so an ix35 owner is reading the right page.

The engine size is the starting point, with one catch

The badge or the logbook will tell you whether the car is a 1.6, a 1.7 or a 2.0. For the 1.6 and the 1.7 that narrows the search to one engine. For the 2.0 it does not, because two different 2.0 CRDi engines appear in the listings.

The D4HA is listed across the Sportage, Tucson, ix35, Santa Fe and Sorento at outputs from 136 to 185 hp. The D4EA is listed with the Sportage and Tucson as well, but alongside a longer run of other Kia and Hyundai models, among them the Ceed, Carens, Magentis, Optima, i30 and Sonata, at 136 to 150 hp. They take different turbochargers.

What this page does not cover

• The 1.6 turbo petrol. The Sportage and Tucson were also sold with a 1.6 petrol turbo engine, listed under the code G4FJ at 177 hp, including GT-Line versions. Its turbocharger, listed as 16399700010, is a different unit from any of the diesel turbos here.
• The Santa Fe and Sorento 2.2 CRDi. The Santa Fe and Sorento appear on some of the 2.0 D4HA listings below, and on that engine their turbochargers are covered here. Their larger 2.2 CRDi is a different engine, and the electronic actuator it carries has its own page: Santa Fe and Sorento 2.2 CRDi actuator.

The Turbochargers on the 1.6, 1.7 and 2.0 CRDi

The table sets out the turbocharger references we found listed for these engines, with the outputs, engine codes and vehicles each listing names. The outputs are given in hp exactly as the listings print them. Where a listing names no engine code, the table says so rather than guessing one.

Why the label decides, not the output

Read down the output column and one figure keeps appearing. Every engine size has a version listed at 136 hp, and on the 2.0 D4HA three of the four references include it. Two of those D4HA references cover the whole range from 136 to 185 hp, so on that engine the output narrows nothing at all.

The 1.7 is no easier: its two references are listed across exactly the same output range. What separates them is the number on the turbocharger itself, printed on a label or plate on the housing. Photograph it before the unit comes off, because heat and oil can make it hard to read later.

If you are having your own turbocharger rebuilt, none of this matching has to be done by you. The unit that comes back is the one that came off your engine. The references matter when you are buying a replacement, because a unit listed for the right car and the wrong output band is still the wrong unit.

What Fails on These Turbos

The listings describe these turbochargers by fitment, not by fault, and no source we reviewed records a failure peculiar to the Kia and Hyundai units. What follows is what wears in any oil-fed diesel turbocharger of this size, and what each finding means for the car it came off. That second part is the one that affects your bill.

Bearings, and the oil that feeds them

The turbocharger’s shaft spins on a film of engine oil delivered through a feed pipe from the engine. When that supply is restricted, whether by a part-blocked feed pipe, a low oil level or oil that has broken down between changes, the bearings wear and the shaft starts to move further than it should. Left long enough, the compressor wheel touches its housing.

Switching off straight after a hard run is the other common drain on bearing life, because the oil stops flowing while the housing is still at its hottest. Our guide to how long turbos last covers those habits. The point for this page is that the cause sits on the car, not in the turbocharger, and it is still there when the rebuilt or replacement unit goes on.

Seals, and the oil that gets past them

Oil in the charge pipes or blue smoke from the exhaust is often put down to failed turbo seals. Sometimes it is. But oil is also pushed past sound seals when the drain back to the sump through the return pipe is restricted, or when crankcase pressure is high. A garage should rule out the return pipe and the crankcase ventilation before a turbocharger is condemned for leaking.

Damage to the wheels

The compressor wheel spins at very high speed and is damaged by anything the intake lets through: debris past a split air filter housing, or a fragment of a failed pipe or clip. Chipped or bent fins are visible with the intake pipe off. The cause has to be found before refitting, or the next wheel meets the same debris.

Boost control

One of the 2.0 D4HA references is sold as a BorgWarner BV43, a variable-geometry design whose vanes are moved to control boost. Carbon from short, cool journeys can stiffen that mechanism; our guide to the VNT turbo explains how it happens and why a fault that clears on a long run has not gone away. The listings do not state the boost-control type for the other references, so the inspection on our bench confirms it for your unit.

Symptoms and the Checks That Come First

A failing turbo on these cars shows itself in the familiar ways: a loss of power, often with the engine management dropping the car into a reduced-power mode, a whistle or whine that rises as boost builds, blue or grey smoke, rising oil consumption and a warning light. A code such as P0299, boost lower than requested, is common. Our guide to turbo failure symptoms sorts each one by where in the unit it starts.

Several cheaper faults produce exactly the same symptoms, and each one sits on the line of a quote that does not change between a rebuild and a replacement. So these checks come before anyone prices a turbocharger:

1. Read the codes while the fault is present. Plug in with the car still showing the problem, and save the freeze-frame data before anything is cleared.
2. Test the charge pipes and intercooler. A split hose or a loose joint loses boost only under pressure and sets the same underboost code as a worn turbo. A pressure test finds it.
3. Check the oil. Note the level, when it was last changed and whether it is the grade the handbook calls for. If the answer to any of those is uncertain, the new turbo’s supply is uncertain too.
4. Look into the compressor inlet, engine off and cold. With the intake pipe removed, check for chipped fins, rub marks on the housing and wet oil. Some shaft movement can be normal, so judge it by whether the wheel touches the housing when gently pushed, not by whether it moves at all.
5. Ask about the exhaust side. If the car has also been showing a particulate filter warning, read whether a blocked DPF can cause turbo failure before the turbo is ordered, because a restricted exhaust works against the turbine.

What a Kia Sportage Turbo Replacement Costs

From us, a replacement turbocharger starts from £450 + VAT and a rebuild of your own starts from £185 + VAT. Your exact price is confirmed once the unit has been identified and inspected, before any work goes ahead. Both figures are for the turbocharger only.

That last point is why published prices for this job vary so widely. Some figures are for a unit in a box; others are for a fitted job with the oil, gaskets and labour already added. They are not measuring the same thing, and comparing one against the other tells you very little.

A quote is a list, not a figure

A fitted turbo replacement is made of several lines. Only one of them changes when you choose between a new unit, an exchange unit and your own rebuilt.

The lines that never move are the ones that decide how long it lasts

When a quote is too high, the temptation is to trim the small lines to pay for the big one: keep the old feed pipe, skip the oil change, leave the return pipe alone. Those are the lines that feed the new turbocharger. A new unit bolted to a part-blocked feed pipe runs on the same restricted supply that wore out the old one, and it wears the same way.

So if the budget is tight, the saving belongs on the one line that does move. Rebuilding the unit you already have costs less than buying another, and it leaves the rest of the quote intact.

Rebuild or replacement: which suits your car

A rebuild is usually the better answer when the car can wait a few working days and the unit is repairable. It also removes the matching problem: with nine references across these engines and several of them sharing output bands, the turbocharger already bolted to your engine is the one unit certain to fit it.

A replacement makes sense when the inspection shows damage that makes a rebuild the wrong answer. If our bench finds that, we tell you before any work starts. Our guide to turbo repair and replacement prices sets out the wider price picture across makes.

Our Kia and Hyundai CRDi Turbo Rebuild

You, or the garage that looks after the car, remove the turbocharger and send it to our workshop at Unit 102 Reaver House, 12 East Street, Epsom, Surrey, KT17 1HX, United Kingdom. Our team of turbo specialists rebuilds it there, in the same order every time.

1. You tell us what is coming. On the online Repair Form, give the model, the registration, the engine size, any fault codes, and a photograph of the label on the turbocharger.
2. We identify and inspect it. The unit is checked against your car when it arrives and examined before it is taken apart, so the report you get describes what we found rather than what we expected.
3. We strip it to component level. Bearings, seals, shaft and wheels are measured against specification. Worn parts are renewed with genuine OE or OEM-grade components, or uprated ones where the original design has a known weakness, so the rebuilt unit meets or exceeds the original.
4. We balance and test it. The rotating assembly is balanced, the boost-control mechanism is set up, and the unit is run on the bench before it is packed.
5. We send it back ready to refit. Renew or clean the oil feed and return pipes, change the oil and filter, and prime the turbocharger before the first start. Our guide to refitting and priming a turbocharger sets out that sequence.

Bench time is typically one to three working days from arrival, plus postage each way. Every rebuild carries a lifetime, unlimited-mileage warranty with no time limit, and independent garages send turbos from their customers’ Sportages and Tucsons in exactly the same way. Packing and postage are covered on our FAQs page.

Kia Sportage and Hyundai Tucson Turbo FAQ

Final Thoughts

The price of a Sportage or Tucson turbo job is not one number. It is the turbocharger plus the labour, the pipes, the gaskets, the oil and whatever caused the failure, and only the first of those depends on whether the unit is new, exchanged or your own. The rest is the same bill either way, and it is the part of the bill that decides whether the next turbo lasts.

So start with the checks that cost least, keep the lines that feed the turbocharger, and make the saving on the unit itself. With nine references spread across three engine sizes, the turbo already on your engine is also the one that needs no matching.