Hi. Im going to begin by saying im not very mechanically inclined with my Audi or cars in general, so i'll do my best to explain the situation.

I drove my car this morning for 10 minutes. When I got home, I could smell this funny odor, almost smelt like an engine fire, and heard a cracking sound. Not like the ordinary popping you get when you turn off your car and it cools down, it was much more violent sounding and loud.

I opened the hood and the front end of the turbo was bright red. I could see it very well because it was 5:00am. Nothing else in the car was heated like this. I waited a few minutes to make sure the car woulden't catch fire, and went in the house. I came back outside 2 hours later before heading to work to check on it, and to make sure that it was infact the turbo that had been bright red ( I wasn't sure, never looked at my engine much, and it was dark when i first looked at it). I could still feel heat comming off the turbo on my face, standing over it. I do recall looking at the oil and radiatior tempurature before turning off the car. They where 70 degree's for the oil and 90 for the rad.

If anyone can explain to me how to troubleshoot the issue, I would greatly appreciate it. I hope I can replace a small part instead of replacing the whole turbo, or other parts.

Thanks.

 

Pretty normal - means you were driving the car hard (high boost levels) before you opened the hood, so the turbo was doing it's job. Next time I'd suggest you allow the turbo to have a proper cool down before turning the engine off - drive the car without getting into too much boost for the last few minutes before you actually turn the car off. This will allow the turbo to cool a little and let oil to circulate through the turbo a little longer.

 

Thanks for the reply. I'll take your word for it that it was high boost levels. I tend to drive my car pretty hard. To be honest though, I generally drive it like that most the time, and have never smelt anything or heard anything like that before, especially in that short of time.

I'll take it for a tame drive and see what happens.

 

I suspect that something is wrong. I do not own a Turbo Audi but I had a turbo WRX for 3 years. I've never had a turbo glow red hot after a 10 minute drive, no matter how hard I was driving. Generally speaking, driving around your neighbourhood (on the way home) allows the turbo to cool (unless you're hitting the boost on your street).

Try this. Drive like you normally do... stop the car and give it a full 1 minute at idle. This should be enough time for the turbo to cool. Pop the hood and see if the turbo is still red hot.