Is there a "safe" time to shut down the engine that is turbo charged?

Question

Or is it safe to park it, and just kill the ignition?

Answer 1

You should always let a turbocharged car cool down before you shut it off. Some cars are more sensitive than others, however. For example, I used to own a 2001 Audi S4, which had two small turbochargers located in the bottom of a completely jam-packed engine bay, which made for a *very* hot environment. Also, the oil-feed lines in those turbos were pretty small.

What happens is that the turbochargers get *incredibly* hot...hot enough to glow, and as long as the car is running, the oil and coolant keeps circulating, the fan keeps blowing, and all of this protects the components. If you shut the car off, some or all of that process will stop and any oil left in a hot turbocharger can carbonize or "coke". Some turbochargers are not run as hot, some have bigger oil lines, some engine bays are not packed so tightly, some cars have after-run coolant or oil pumps (the S4 had an after-run coolant pump, but that's not necessarily enough by itself, and the car had to be *really* hot for it to run), etc.

One thing you certainly can do is drive the car very gently for the last few minutes of your drive. Stay out of boost, stay in as high a gear as you can without lugging the engine, etc. Even better if you're cruising gently at 50-60 mph in high gear, because then you get lots of cooling air flow. If you are good about doing that, then you can probably just shut the car off when you stop.

Never drive a turbo-charged car hard and then just shut it off, though. How much time you need to give it depends on the car and how hard you drove it, but I'd say at least a minute.

Oh, and in response to a couple of other answers - very few cars actually will keep the *engine* running after the car has been shut off. That's called a "turbo-timer" and they are usually after-market products and, if you have a manual transmission, require that you leave your car in neutral with just the parking brake on, which isn't a great idea. Turbo-timers *do* work and will protect your engine...they just don't generally come from the factory and they have their trade-offs. What you hear in those cars that "stay on" when you shut them off is usually just the fan and a coolant pump, which, as I said, isn't necessarily enough.

Answer 2

Most turbo engines continue to run after they shut down anyways..... until they wind down. I wouldn't kill the ignition right after running quarters but other than that, you should be okay.

Answer 3

If you have a newer car most of them have there own timer for it and will shut the motor down on its own. If it is a older car and you have ran it all day like driving the freeway. You should let it idle for about five mins before shutting the motor off. You can check with the maker of the tubro and see what there say about it also.

Answer 4

noooooo! wait a couple minutes for it to cool down.

Answer 5

i dunno dear but i need the points