I have had my turbo timer in my car since compliance about a year and a half ago. I had it installed by Autoworx and it is a autowatch alarm system. On Saturday i got a call from the cops asking me to go and turn my car off bcoz it had been on for at least the past 2 hrs. i had put 40 buks of fuel in and it was all gone with the fuel light on. The turbo timer had fukt up and didnt switch it off like it had always done before. i called autoworx and they said they will repair the system (not replace it), and that i shuldnt worry too much because it wuldnt have damaged my engine at all. i found this hard to beleive that leaving a car on for over 2 hrs does nothing to it. I feel this should be replace not just repaired. Am i right in thinking this??
Did the car overheat whilst sitting in the same spot for 2hours? Definately try and find out what caused the fault and see if they can replace the system. If you're not happy with it then spend a little bit more money and go elsewhere as you wouldn't want it to happen again.
nah it didnt over heat but the area around the whole car was really hot... yeah $40 down the drain. it wuld hav done some dammage to the engine hey?? they said they werent going to replace only fix the problem. they said i can pay for an upgrade but i think they shuld jus give it to me.... wishful thinking maybe but compensation shuld b givin seeing as it was their faulty product. What do u think??
out of interest.... what did the cops say to you...did you get fined??? cause having a turbo timer running with no one int he car is illegal...........
You're engine will be fine as long as it didn't overheat. Think about it. You can drive for 2 straight hours with the engine at 3000rpm and it won't hurt it at all. So sitting idling for 2 hours won't do it any damage unless the cooling system isn't up to scratch.
But driving for 2 hours at 3000rpm isn't the same as sitting in the same spot for 2 hours... the car needs to breathe fresh air. when moving you get that constant flow air accross the radiator (and intercoolers). When sitting in the one spot (unless it's windy) the car will be sucking in the hot air from around it as well as exhaust gases etc. But as you said as long as it didn't over heat you should be fine. Would it be possible for a car to ping whilst sitting in the same spot for 2 hours? If it was sucking in hot air and since there's no flow of air across the intercoolers, could the car be pinging on idle? As for getting it replaced, it depends on what caused the fault. If it's a faulty alarm system then they should replace it (it should still be under warranty too).
Depends where the car was as well. I'm assuming it was outside since the cops came to tell him about it. So there should have been plenty of fresh air. The car is only idling at approx 700rpm so it's cooling requirements are far less than when it's being driven.
Not entirely true, air forced over the radiator when driving makes for far more effective cooling than when it is stationary using the fan only. But as someone said above if it didn't overheat then it will be fine. Problem is that it was 18months ago since you got it installed, so any warranty period on their behalf I'm sure has passed...
I said the engine requires less cooling when it's idling. I never said it ran cooler. Obviously the cooling system isn't as efficient when the car is stationary.
That's my point, it actually requires MORE cooling due to the lack of air being forced thru the radiator hence the need for an engine fan. When moving at speed the engine fan basically does nothing, it's more there to keep the car cool when stationary. But anyway it's a non-event as he was lucky that it didn't overheat. Now if it had and totally rooted up the motor, I'd be interested to know what kind of legal action could be taken there. You'd think that there would have to be some shared responsibility by whoever installed that turbo timer. And yes I wouldn't pay a cent for them to fix this, tell them they're lucky it didn't overheat and to be thankful that they're only fixing the turbo timer for you and not replacing a headgasket or something.
