Jaguar S-Type 2.7 TDV6 (2004–2008) Turbocharger

Two Turbochargers, and Not Two of the Same Part

The 2.7 TDV6 was built with a turbocharger on each side of the V6 rather than one in the middle of it, and that changes how a failure on this engine has to be handled.

The two are not a mirrored pair. Each side carries its own reference, and the two sit next to each other in the numbering — near enough to be mistaken for one another on an invoice, and different parts all the same.

More than one family of references also appears across the 2004 to 2008 cars, and the year ranges quoted against them overlap, so the build year does not separate them either. That is why there is no table on this page matching a reference to a side. The only statement that holds is the one stamped on your own casing.

Deciding Which One Has Failed Happens on the Car

On a car with a single turbocharger, diagnosis and removal are one decision. Here they are two, and the first has to be right before the second is worth starting: taking a turbocharger off the wrong bank is a day of work that changes nothing.

Three things point at a side. The first is what the engine management recorded: on a twin installation the boost-control circuits are separate, so the stored data is capable of naming a side — a reason to have it read properly rather than pulled off a generic code reader.

The second is what the car is showing you: a whine that rises with load, smoke, or soot marking one side of the engine bay. The third is physical, once access is open — play in the shaft, and oil in the charge pipework on one side and not the other.

Once the unit is off the car, the side question goes with it. Whatever the reference on the casing reads, it is attached to the unit in front of the engineer, and the work is booked against that.

The Two Are Not Independent of Each Other

Both turbochargers are fed by the same oil system, through the same filter, on the same service history. If the one that failed was starved or fed with dirty oil, the cause sits in a system the second is still connected to — and so will your rebuilt unit be.

The surviving turbocharger is not a new part, and the first one failing tells you nothing about the state of the second. What you do about that is your decision; what is not optional is dealing with whatever caused the failure before a rebuilt unit goes back on.

If you send both, say so on the note that travels with them and we will book them in together.

What Goes Wrong Inside One of These

The shaft runs in bearings on a film of oil, and as they wear the clearance opens up. First the noise changes: a whine that arrives with load and fades when you lift off. Then oil passes the seals into the compressor and turbine housings — blue smoke, an oily film in the charge pipework, an oil level that drops with no leak underneath.

The boost-control mechanism fails differently. It sits on the exhaust side in heat and soot and has to stay free to work; when it stiffens there is often no noise and no smoke, only boost that overshoots or never arrives. On this engine that is harder to place than usual, because the car gives you one set of symptoms for two turbochargers.

Where the boost-control side turns out to be the fault and the rotating assembly is sound, that is an electronic turbo actuator repair rather than a rebuild, and we take those in as a separate job.

A bearing rarely wears out unaided, either. Feed pipes coke up internally and returns restrict, and the bearing runs on less oil than it was built to have — as true after a rebuild as before one.

What Happens to the Unit You Send

Your turbocharger is stripped to its last component and every wear surface measured before a part is ordered. Those measurements set the specification: what has worn past tolerance, what has not, and what has to be renewed.

Wear parts go back in to genuine OE or OEM-grade specification, uprated where the original design is the reason the unit reached the bench. The boost-control mechanism is freed and set through its full travel, the rotating assembly balanced, and the finished unit run up and tested before it is packed.

Nothing is exchanged. The unit booked in under your name is the one that comes back, rebuilt in our own UK workshop by turbo specialists, under a lifetime, unlimited-mileage warranty.

Sending It In, and Putting It Back On

Send it complete, with its boost-control components attached, and cover every port and flange so nothing gets into the housings in transit.

Put a note in with it: your name, the car, which side the unit came off and what the car was doing when the fault appeared. The turbocharger will tell us what has worn; it cannot tell us what was happening at the time, and on this engine that is often what identifies the cause.

Renew the oil feed and return lines rather than cleaning them — a pipe that has coked internally does not come clean, and reusing one is the commonest reason a sound rebuild fails early. Prime the feed before the engine fires so a rebuilt bearing does not start dry.

Book a Rebuild for Your S-Type Turbocharger

Add the rebuild to your basket, or start with the online Repair Form if you would rather describe the car and the fault first. Post the turbocharger to Unit 102 Reaver House, 12 East Street, Epsom, Surrey, KT17 1HX, United Kingdom, with the note above, and say if both units are coming. Turbocharger rebuilds by make and model covers everything else we take in.

If the unit that comes off is not this one, the rest of the turbochargers we rebuild are listed in the shop.