Looking at 01 turbo in morning. What to look for?

As the title says I'm looking for some advice. I own a '99 C4 and upgrading so... Thanks,

Quotes source post: 9287098

Everything. The Turbo is just a used car so give it a used car check out. But first, what I recommend is visit the car with the car engine cold. Turn on the key and verify all warning lights come, including the CEL, then they go off when the key is turned and the engine fires and begins idling. Turn off the A/C. (You test this later. The fans run when the A/C is on and you want the fans off for the test ride/drive. If the engine gets hot enough the fans will come which is what you want to hear.) The engine should crank over smartly and fire right up. The idle may sound a bit ragged (courtesy of the variable valve timing/lift active at cold start (and at other times)) but the idle should smooth out and the slightly elevated idle speed will drop slowly as the engine idles and gets warmer. Let the engine idle a while. All the time walk around the car and listen for anything scary from the engine area. At the time check the body panel fits/gaps. Let the engine idle until the engine is pretty warm. If possible you might idle it long enough to check the oil level. After the longish idle, have the seller take you on a test ride. The route should provide the driver the chance to demo the car in a variety of scenarios. Idling, slow/stop/go, blvd cruising, highway cruising, hard acceleration, hard braking (no ABS trigger but hard nonetheless). You want to pay particular attention to well, everything, but especially the engine how it sounds, reacts, pulls, sounds on closed throttle. Also how the transmission shifts, how the car moves off from a stop if a manual or an automatic. Like I said you have to pay attention to everything. Once the engine is fully up to temp have the driver make a couple of hard runs from off idle to near redline then upshift and keep his foot planted to near redline again. The engine should pull strong and smooth all the way. After the engine should settle into a smooth idle with no drama. Pay attention to the oil pressure gage. Hot idle should have the reading around 1.5 to 2 bar. A bit lower might be ok -- I have not had time to speak to a tech about what's too low (and there's the question of gage variablity) -- but a real high reading is also worrisome. The owner may have heavy oil in the engine to quiet it. At 3K or higher the oil pressure should be at least 4bar and 4.5bar is common. Be aware in some cars the oil pressure gage needle can drop and jump about some. Check the voltage gage display. The needle should be over 13V though how muich over depends upon the condition of the battery, the electrical load, etc. Under hard acceleration pay attention to the boost gage. Max. boost is 0.7bar though under some circumstances (mainly operating the car at higher elevations) the boost can go higher: 0.8bar, even 0.9bar (max I've seen at over 8K feet is 0.9 bar). Back at the starting point take the car out as the driver and follow teh same route, drive teh car the same way. Back at the starting point if you like the car then give it a good used car check out. Check everything works. Let the engine idle now that it is fully warm and verify the radiator fans come on and switch off. Verify the engine compartment fan works. When you turn on the A/C the fans should come on and stay on. Test the spoiler. Test the headlight washers. Test everything. A used car checkout list can run 100 or more items from the above to checking the tread depth -- you have a tread depth gage I hope -- and feeling tires for feathering/cupping or other unusual surface features for worrisome wear patterns. If after the checkout you still like the car and believe you can do a deal arrange to have the car PPI'd which should include a DME readout of the overrev counters. Post for comment by the experts. You really need to subject the car to a longish test ride/drive to give yourself time to note any oddities or for the car to manifest any issues, like a CEL. It can 30 miles or so for the DME to complete its tests and flag any problems with the misfire detection, knock control, O2 sensors, converters, vapor recovery, and so on. Also, the PPI comes after the test ride/drive which gives any fluid leaks time to show up. There''s more but I'm out of time. Sincerely, Macster.

read through several pages on the Turbo 996 posts. You'll get an idea what to look for.

Yeah, I think in the Turbo forum you will get more answers than here

For a turbo I would definitely have a good shop read and interpret the over-rev codes.

See car, drive car, fall in love,buy car. Get PPI later when car makes noise or CEL comes on

Quotes source post: 9287786

...then go to bank, get $, have turbo fixed, get more $...GL with your purchase.

Thanks all. On the way to see it.

Pay special attentionto the trans in that car. Pre02 turbos had a few issues.

Watch out for 2nd gear pop out.

Take out the oil filter and check for metal.

Quotes source post: 9287782

+1, very important on turbo cars! Also, remember that the life of turbo chargers are limited, depending on how the car was driven, the life of the turbos could be as little as 50k miles... DEF have a mechanic look at it and it might be a good idea to spend the money on a leak down test, provided of course that the car checks out with all of the other obvious PPI things.