So I bought a used turbo from some guy (Garrett T3/To4e, .60ar). He said it was only used for a couple thousand miles. Well I looked at the fins on the exhaust side and it has some oil on it. It has no shaft play. I'm at work right now so I can't get a pic of it.

My friend got the same turbo except it's Turbonetics and had oil in his exhaust turbine when he got it. He installed it and his setup is running good.

Is this normal? I hope it's not burning oil

 

thats a sign of a bad seal, you wont know till you install it. Thats probably why he sold it.

 

it actually came off of a ford probe that he parted everything out of (he sold a bunch of parts in the area)... so he didnt sell it for that reason.. but i see what u mean

anyone else?

 

^

 

take it to a local shop for testing... i think many of them don't charge to test out a turbo...

 

maybe he got oil on the fins when he took the feed off, who knows...

 

i had oil on my exhaust fins. well the turbo seemed like it ran fine. lasted 6 months. thats it and now it doesnt even boost... smoke everywhere

 

I don't think oil on the fins is always a bad thing. It might mean that there is a bad seal but every now and then I have a little bit of oil in there and everything is fine. If it was gobs and gobs of oil then I would be worried.

Take it to a shop just to be sure and get them to look at it. As someone else said I don't think they charge or it will be minimal to check it.