This guide is intented to owners of a defective turbocharger looking for a TURBO REBUILD KIT on ebay.

By means of objective information, this short guide is aiming at one of the most pathetic Ebay racket, namely the "DIY TURBO REBUILD KIT " myth!

The hoax consists in leading people to believe they can remanufacture a used/broken turbocharger at home, with basic hand tools and no particular knowledge or instrumentation, by simply dropping-in a "turbo rebuild kit".

The ebay peddlers retailing these kits are laughing at you when selling 4$ chinese kits at over 100% profit. They don't care if it works or not, what happens if it doesn't and why, because by the time the customer eventually attempts his home made"REBUILD" and finds out the outcome, they're gone with your money! and they are still out there selling more of the same thing, but under another ebay name! 

WHY a  "turbo rebuild kit" will not allow to reliably remanufacture a turbocharger ?

1. SIZED WRONG:   These "rebuild kits" always include standard (OEM) sized bearings and seals. However, over/undersized internals are most of the times required to compensate for the wear that caused the need for a rebuild in the first place. Even if properly installed, these rebuild kits are likely leave your turbo with inacceptable shaft play and seal gap, resulting in a poorly performing turbo that's gonna rapidly fail with even more costly damages.
   
2. LACK OF PROPER INSTRUMENTATION:   disassembly, reassembly, shaft straightening, BALANCING, fitting over/undersized internals and TESTING of the rebuilt CHRA are as many critical steps to properly remanufacture a turbocharger that are absolutely requiring Highly specialized tooling and workmanship.
3. BALANCING:   The common belief is that you can mark the compressor wheel and re-install it at the same angle to keep the balancing...Sure thing.... But if the turbo failed and needs a rebuild, it's because of unbalance!!! re-assembling it with no prior rebalancing is a WARRANTY for failure!! Would you change a tire on a rim without rebalancing? Certainly not because it will vibrate for sure at highway speeds! right? Then what about a turbocharger spinning over100 00 rpm? Does it deserve balancing?
   
4. QUALITY:   99% of ebay's cheap "REBUILD KITS" are not genuine components but low quality replicas. it's no problem at all for chinese manufactures to produce copies of the real thing for a few ¢ each but that's without any respect to the stringeant OEM specifications in terms of alloying elements, heat treatments, surface finish, and dimensional tolerancing. it's well known, chinese turbos fail just by looking at them. Then what to expect from a turbo, even genuine, rebuilt with these chinese parts?
5. WARRANTY:   So you still want to give it a shot to save some money??? Just consider that when your home made rebuilt turbo fails again, you are back to square one with a turbo that's even more damaged, more expensive to repair, colateral damage to your engine and mostly: more downtime on your car...On the other hand, a profesional remanufacturing by any reputable turbo remanufacturer is always warrantied. In the unlikely event of a problem, the inspection, repair or even replacement of your turbocharger is covered by the warranty of the remanufacturer.

Hopefully, with these facts in mind, concerned ebayers will be able to make a clever choice between the "DIY rebuild kit" and the profesional, warrantied turbo remanufacturing.