VTT GC Turbos Review (Updated)

Blaster3500

Sergeant
Nov 5, 2016
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Well, VTT is the *only* vendor to admit the issue. RB turbos hasn't admitted it, but they agreed with VTT's analysis results. And MMP is still ignoring things completely. What do you declare to be the worst offender there? Only one has actually admitted the issue exists.....
I am not a MMP fan but I will say any issue and they go above and beyond to take care of it. RB had issues years ago and from what I can tell took care of them under warranty? I am a VTT customer and fan and they have always treated me well but I think they should offer a significant discount to rebuild original GCs. Let's keep in mind the failures were since the launch and if I recall they never stopped selling them.
 

Tuppidsay

Corporal
Aug 3, 2017
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Not the original owner, 2 years since install, offered full rebuilds for roughly 66% off? Come on man...just stop....

Also, one of my gc lites did fail (turbine blade broke off) within the 1 year warranty. No questions asked, Chris's email back to me was I'm sorry, send them to us, we will take care of you. They rebuilt them with the new turbines, payed for shipping back to me, and threw in a free install kit and t-shirt. Chris was supper helpful through the whole process answering emails at 11pm on a weekend.
 

fmorelli

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Edit: Saw your build thread, Beautiful car!
Thanks!
Sorry, but your not interpreting this response correctly or rather is should say that the fact that it can be interpreted many ways only puts him in more legal problems if a class action was to show up.
Actually I believe you may be the one that is not understanding. It's interesting that you included Vargas' post and this second time exclude who he was replying to ... which was the context and basis for my response. You effectively dismantled my point by removing enough information, so let's try again:

You're not going to make sense of my comment unless you consider my comments in context to Tony replying to someone's post.
1) He didnt have any disclamers about it
We agree. That was my point - he was simply responding to the original comment:

Screen Shot 2018-03-27 at 8.51.26 AM.png


2) He went on and talked about how some wheels never had issues and others would loose a fin (admitting to what the defect is, and this references all of his GC sales)
Agree. And in context to those customers that had bought GCs and hadn't installed yet. He's responding to the question.
3) He went on and said other turbo vendors with an issue instead of fixing it would ignore you and blame it on something else voiding warrantys
4) He then said once we realized there was a real issue, it was no questions asked we would make it right at no cost to the customer.
Yes, you can read that as an unequivocal (unbound) statement but I submit that's not realistic. That doesn't mean he'll fix it 20 years from now, for example. Recall my comments about what's reasonable and I start throwing out time frames ... you are the judge? Nor am I? He has a warranty period, and he's implying original customers. That's a given. Everything else is subjective (not moral truth).

There is no other way to interpret that.
I just did. See above.
A warrandy is not a defect.
Do we have a language barrier? We agree: a warranty is not a defect. Warranties are for COVERING defects. That's what I explained: "A warranty is to cover defects. Nothing else. Defects in materials. Defects in assembly. Defects in design. If not then what is a warranty covering?"

Did you not read that from the Vargas own mouth? here is it again, so it doesnt matter how long it is, how many miles it is or who owns it (unless the original owner had the chance to remedy it).
I did read it. Twice. Never saw this. Feel free to clearly post where he said that (and cherry picking his response out of context, which is what you did in the last response, which I now remedied by including the whole response in this post).
If he offered a free fix to GC owners and the original owner no longer has it then that set fix moves onto the person who currently holds the defect. The original owner never got a chance to fix them becaue vargas never reached out to inform anyone outside of this post.
Which I saw him say, explicitely, nowhere in what you posted.

As for the morality of it, even Vargas agrees with me! If what others have said are true and these have been known to be defective for so long then why didnt he take is own advice and stop production and stop selling them because its a criminal act?

Ironically, in effect, you seem to not find a single point I've made having any validity. You have convinced yourself that you have the sole view on how all of this works. I understand why you have a lawyer on retainer - people like that need it. Sorry to see you're having so many problems. I tried to point out a different way to see it, but clearly it is not helpful to you. If you wish to argue with me its your choice. You are backed into a corner and I'm trying to point out a different way of looking at it. Now you are talking about class action law suits ... instead I would go the de-escalation rout.

I think it would have been great if VTT chose to fix a second owner's two-year-old turbos for free, extending the warranty if you will. But they didn't choose to do so.

The other reason I responded - and obviously it's not because I know either you or Tony, as I know neither of you - is that this platform seems to be full of vendor problems, but those problems as I'm discovering have just as much to do with the owners as the vendors. So much confusion is created that its hard to figure out who has what product and who stands behind what and so forth. I've held off buying a turbo solution because I have been unable to make sense of it all. But I posted a response because I believe cast VTT in the wrong light, and after this exchange it is clear to me that you have no intention of understanding the circumstance - you're just pissed, and owed something, so the information gets twisted to make VTT look bad. Did they have issues with the blades? Well we know that - they publicly stated some of the blades had issues. Did they say they would cover all owners (not just original customers) for the life of an operating car? No. And you can continue to infer that they did, but they didn't. Again, I'd take the $1k repair and enjoy those turbos - I hear from people with the upgrades that they put down some nice power. Enjoy the car!

Filippo
 
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MasterC17

Private
Jan 19, 2018
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As far as I am concerned this is fairly straightforward.

The original owner neglected to have his Turbo's serviced. Some responsibility has to fall on the original owner for paying no attention to a possible defect with the expensive product he purchased. This is like ignoring a low oil light until the engine blows up and then blaming BMW.

A second owner is requesting warranty for Turbo's that are a) out of the warranty period, and b) were not purchased by him.

Honestly, I think $1,000 to rebuild the Turbo's is actually pretty reasonable. I don't see why VTT would offer anything beyond that.

Not to mention this is definitely not a review thread, but rather a complaint thread lol.
 
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Rob@RBTurbo

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Dec 7, 2016
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Well, VTT is the *only* vendor to admit the issue. RB turbos hasn't admitted it, but they agreed with VTT's analysis results. And MMP is still ignoring things completely. What do you declare to be the worst offender there? Only one has actually admitted the issue exists.....

We are not sure what you mean when we "agreed" with any analysis. Quite frankly we feel this is going to be reocurring in the GC 2.0's as well, to further the point of us not understanding what you say we agree with here? Regarding us not admitting that we have had faults in the past? Sure we have, and I put a large thread up on BB earlier this month talking about much of the past and improvements that have been made over time and how our results have been absolutely flawless over much time now. Also documented all shipments of different options, etc.; could not be any happier with a ~0% failure rate across ~400 units across over ~1.5+ years to tell you the truth and we'd lay out that hand against anyone as well.

Now if you are saying we need to outline publicly every defect (of the several) we've ever seen from our supply chain over the years for the public eye, keep in mind it is not only the public watching it is also the competition. Do you think we want to tip off our competitors of what to look out for? No we want them to trip over everything we had to trip over as well, sorry not sorry there and trust it is a mutual feeling from the best of 'em in this industry.

When it comes to our old customers with problems keep in mind the scale has never been anything even remotely as large as this GC ordeal (which is in the count of likely well over 200 sets), and rest assured we have taken care of anyone with an issue WELL above and beyond what our warranty specifies. Some we have even bought back at a large % of purchase price, some we found amicable buyback amounts many MANY years later. If we feel a set had something from our supply chain that caused a defect which caused a issue with longevity, we certainly will put our best foot forward to ease the pain for everyone as much as possible regardless of the warranty period.

Also understand the largest contenders of RB were usually our own very competitor of whom agitated things much like we are by making this post, in sort of a weird twist of fate here we are kinda laughing about the karma aspect of it all and sorry not sorry again. On top of them were some customers who felt they needed to be made whole again, that is full labor expenses/free replacements/rental car reimbursement/pain and suffering/etc. We are sure they've consulted with our competitor's right hand attorney who made them feel they needed to push that at the time and how much they were in the right, but oh have the tables turned it would seem. In comparison to those expectations I will tell you firsthand that this buster guy is a gem compared to some of those we had to go up against way back in those VTT invoked "RB Class Action" days. On that note some we even bought back or resurrected very favorably within our industry guidelines still never felt whole, and still trolled us for years and some probably still do wherever possible today. Apparently our amicable gentlemen's handshake was not thought out very well on my behalf, while we are sure others are more protected by the pen in this regard.

At the end of the day the masses always get excited when some vendor promises something new, they may add in "fixes all issues!" "all new cast!" "has our logo!" "we own the molds!" "flows the most'est!" etc etc and the masses buy it hook and sinker every time. Sadly some vendors also do not learn lessons over time either, and they keep changing up product lines without ever dialing things in on top of OUTSOURCING MORE... putting them right back into the same debacle they were in the time before. The best bet for the consumer is to ask the vendors "how long have these been installed on actual cars for and what are the return rates" etc; rather than just making purchases on increased reliability SPECULATION from the ones who are wanting to capitalize off selling these very products along with the dealers who push them to make a bit of a rake as well.

At any rate much is to learn here but as one can see the trend carries on, more outsourced turbos being pre-sold at this very moment, not ever bolted to a car before (or maybe 1 or 2 for a week or two)- so let the guinea pig circle resume yet again.

Rob
 
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DennisKing

Specialist
Nov 5, 2016
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No warranty to the second owner is an industry standard. No getting around that. I truly hope that you can find a solution.

With that aside, it seems like a very muddy situation. Apparently, the Zage sourced turbos aren't working out for Turbo Tony.
 

veer90

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Nov 16, 2016
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Bmw shouldn't be replacing hpfp and injectors for free to 3rd, 4th, 5th, owners. It's not government mandated recall either, but they do it because it's the right thing to do. They don't because they don't want to screw their customers and they do it to establish brand loyalty. Seems like Vargas just wants to take your money and run. They don't stand by their products and that shows alot.

OT but BMW refused to replace my HPFP (showed signs of impending failure at 99.8k). refused to replace my injectors (they started leaking at 92k). refused to replace my turbos (smoking right at 82k). I'm 0 for 3 on the major N54 warranty items.

I like BMW's cars but to the company I have no loyalty to whatsoever. "Brand loyalty" is a joke
 

Rob@RBTurbo

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No warranty to the second owner is an industry standard. No getting around that. I truly hope that you can find a solution.

With that aside, it seems like a very muddy situation. Apparently, the Zage sourced turbos aren't working out for Turbo Tony.

I'm not so sure it is that simple but it is what separates vendors and warranties. Here is a quick bit of laughter from a great movie, actor and legend, that I happen to love about the "ole warranty/guarantee" definition:

At any rate if one of our customers sold a car to another while still under warranty and there was a turbo failure that fell in a gray area we'd still most likely warranty it and the owner transfer likely wouldn't have much affect on the nature of the warrantable outcome. Even if the failure was black and white such as the new owner dropped a bolt into the inlet and it damaged the turbo while and while still under warranty; we'd still likely help out with repair costs tremendously. We do agree that if it was out of warranty, another owner, and the failure was black and white not due to our own supply chain or build issue we would likely not offer much assistance.

BUT this is disregarding any concept of deep known issue from parts within the supply chain of course, having those issues you'd certainly want to put your best forward to make sure the streets are clean of units you as a vendor had put your Branding on regardless of the owner and timeframe. Not saying it is lifelong free replacements, but rather however many years or owners later if you know you have had a serious issue you certainly want to make the experience very easy for your customers (or your customers' customers).

Now we realize that we all have disclaimers that may say the contrary, but those are there to protect against some extreme scenarios. Perhaps this is one of those scenarios considering the amount of units sold, and subsequently failing, that one must lean heavily on these disclaimers to protect the business from going under much like a Hexon.

From a consumer standpoint ultimately the best bet is to open up a line of communication with the vendor to determine the reality of what assistances can be made in the time of an issue if/when one ever should occur; a vendor without any large issues likely is going to work with you any way they can (within reason) to help you out.

Rob
 
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veer90

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Back on topic, is this related to the "industry-wide TD04 9-blade turbine failure" talk I hear floating around?

As far as I know, it's ONLY A RUMOR. Before every twin turbo vendor on here puts a bounty on my head lol
 

chadillac2000

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Oct 26, 2017
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Back on topic, is this related to the "industry-wide TD04 9-blade turbine failure" talk I hear floating around?

As far as I know, it's ONLY A RUMOR. Before every twin turbo vendor on here puts a bounty on my head lol

Not a rumor. It's the reason I left my GC Lites uninstalled, and ultimately returned them and went ST. As to whether or not this was industry wide is up for discussion.
 
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veer90

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Not a rumor. It's the reason I left my GC Lites uninstalled, and ultimately returned them and went ST.

Do MMPs have the same wheel? I was comparing pictures of my turbines when I pulled downpipes with pics of the GC wheels in this post. The blades look like they could be the same but the wheel nut is different.
 

matreyia

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Apr 19, 2017
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Note to self. Do not buy from Vargas.

Thank you for the report.
MMP Cast Turbos it shall be then.
 
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Torgus

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And the squeaky wheel gets the grease.

Glad the OP got what they were deserved from the get go.

But in other matters what did happen to the RB lawsuit Chris@VTT?
 
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fmorelli

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UPDATE 3/27/2018
Vargas has gone above and beyond what you could have asked for in regards to customer service
, especially considering all of the circumstances. I just wanted to let everyone know, and he'll be getting these turbos here soon.
So basically he did EXACTLY what you said he was morally bound to do, and now he's gone "above and beyond what you could have asked for" ... wow ... just wow. I'm damn glad I don't have to deal with the insane customers on this platform.

I'm always the first to admit when im wrong and today I was proven wrong.
What kind of delusion is this? You're the first to admit when your wrong? Who would be the second?! Dude, I pointed out twice that you were pushing over the top ... and all you did was tell me how I had it all wrong. You didn't admit shit. It's people like you, along with your two-bit class-action lawsuit ambulance chasing lawyer that make this stuff NO FUN.

Glad your hissy fit got you somewhere, and you were the first to admit you were wrong. You've got ALOT of nerve claiming you stand on moral ground. Wow ... just wow. Isn't the Internet great! Pat yourself on the back, bro - first to admit your wrong and apologize after coming here and shitting all over someone. Your morality is soooo magnanimous. Unreal.

Filippo
 
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boostE92d

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I know it's annoying, but the guy complaned and got his way. If it had been me, I would have either paid the thousand or just let it go. I would have lost out, comparatively.
 
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