The truth about Ebay Turbochargers

I bought most all my parts off E-Bay for my NA2T conversion. The sellers' feedback tells the whole story. I never buy from someone with less than 99% positive and have worked very hard to keep my 100% perfect feedback over the past ten years. What really impresses me are the sellers who have thousands of transactions and still have perfect feedback.

With "big" ebay companys feedback doesnt mean shit. Especialy with "cheap" parts. Most of the people that buy these things hardly know anything and leave feedback upon arrival of the item rather than after testing and using it for over a period of time. Which is why when theres "positive" feedback on a cheap ebay turbo generaly the person slapped it on and it seems to be working fine, time will tell when weather or not the turbo stands true and people dont wait to leave feedback of the actual quality of the item.

Generaly most of the good feedback is also from using bolt on "cool" parts like light and underglow.

Go fast parts don't flood the feedback section as much as "cool" parts do.

yeah i have spent alot of time reading feedback and most of the time it is for stuff like projector headlights, led kits, shift boots, etc. usually the negative feedback is from shipping issues. so far i have only read a few feedbacks for turbos, i believe all of them were, item as described.

I find buying a turbo (or anything really heavy) that could potentially fail at the most inopportune time is not something I usually do, unless there is a service center that is relatively close to my house.

imagine having to ship a shitty turbo back to the manufacturer, just to be short-changed for a lot of time, money, and sweat & blood, and probably a couple of hairs.

It's not my idea of a good purchase.

If I can find a turbo locally for a good price and for, say… 50 - 100 bucks more.. it may be worth spending the extra moola on.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Za0DieZHMKc[/video]]

Great video about knock off turbo's, and reasons why you should not buy one.
2.44 it gets good.

Old ebay turbos have been known to do stuff of this nature… but ill use CXRAcing turbos now as an example.. Theres a shit ton of really quick cars that have been running for a few years now running these turbos without issue..

Their getting better at making these knockoffs so that people will acctualy buy them

[quote]Shady195 wrote: I was afraid of reply in fear of getting flamed but whatever.

I DO use a Ebay turbo. a T3/T4. it spools VERY nicely at 15psi mind you I still don't have a blow off valve yet so is DOES surge. it picks up incredibly fast.

the problem with Ebay turbos is the seals and balancing. when you buy a Ebay turbo SOME may be balanced some may not it's a hit or miss with them just like buying a junkyard turbo hit or miss. If someone does buy one Ebay turbo I STRONGLY recommended getting it rebuilt with a genuine Rebuild kit like greddy, HKS, garrett, turbonetics etc. and it'll be as good as new. for GT turbos your out of luck those have to be sent in and taken apart very few turbo shops can take apart a GT turbo and rebuild properly.

so why spend 3k on a turbo when you can have one rebuilt and balanced for less then $900?

I will admit they do have their down falls when I had a GT45 ebay turbo the compressor fins would break with ease so maybe the bigger turbos suffer from that but maybe not the smaller ones.

I had bought a cxracing t3/t4 a year or two ago. I never got around to putting it in. It seemed like a quality unit. It spun freely, no shaft play. I ended up selling it, but I am thinking about buying another one just to try it out. I am redoing a maxima block, so once that is done, I will probably throw a cxracing turbo on the engine thats in it now. There are a bunch of videos on youtube about cxracing but they are mostly from two people.

uhh what? atpturbo sells GT BB turbos for 1k-2k with T series journal bearing turbos being much cheaper. You will never find an ebay special that can compare to these.

Meh, you get what you pay for. If you like taking apart your car go for it. 300cars is a perfect example of that.

With my new setup I can have the engine out in 30 mins. The only reason I am not driving my car now is the hydraulic long ram for my hoist blew up. I am waiting on a new one. I am willing to bet there are ONE or TWO out of a thousand ebay sellers that sell a decent turbo. That being said I am would not trust an ebay turbo on a built engine.

The Brazilian SPA turbos arent bad for the money.

also a number of precision turbos in the SC61 line can be had for under $780 and do 650whp or so.

or for around 75 lb/min air you can have the PT67 line for under $920

Im going to raise the BS flag on this one.

I highly doubt you can pull your motor in 30mins. Especially if you dont wiring and such.

did u see my build thread? I got the wiring cleaned up and reduced. I can get to the heater core hoses with the new plenum on. I left the trans in the car. 5 mins to unbolt the trans. 1 min undo wiring. 3 mins water lines. 5 min to pull the intercooler. 1 min fuel lines. 5 mins hook up straps. 10 mins inching/ maneuvering the engine out.

I know a guy whom has gone through two of these ebay t3/t4 units. I told him not to skimp out when it comes to something that can fail soo easily and throw chunks of metal through your engine, but he never listened to me and had to rebuild his current ebay unit. Funny thing is, even after the rebuild it still blows smoke from the seals.