A Mishap This Morning - Intercooler Hose Clamp Replacement and Maintenance

[AutoRacer100]

A little mishap to share with you all. My 2010 A4 drove like a shit this morning. The jerking and trans did not want to shift above 2nd gear and the car produced a whoosh sound when accelerating. Several lights went on in the dashboard after 10 mins of driving. I was so worried. The car only has 47k miles on it and is it time for a new one?

I brought my car to my local shop. The guy test drove it and told me there is no 3rd or 4th gear and the car was screaming. They looked under the car and found one of the intercooler hose clamps broke off. So it was the boost leak caused all the abnormal behavior of the car. I have the ESC Tuning intercooler and it was installed about 2 years ago. I did recall one of the intake/intercooler hose clamp came loose every now and then (Is that a sign for a new clamp?). But I did not know it actually could broke off.

The guy also claimed that there were a lot of engine oil in the intercooler hose. Does that mean my stock turbo is about to go? The shop charged me $300 for the 20 mins of replacing the hose clamp and 30 mins of road test. I know that shop is expensive but I had no choice because I do not know any better ones in my area. Sorry I am venting.

So should I start replacing those intake and intercooler hose clamps as part of annual maintenance moving forward? Is there a way for me to replacing that clamp without lifting up the car?

And I see ECS Tuning is selling the heavy duty intercooler hose clamp for $18 a piece. Are they really heavy duty?

[19birel]

$300 for that is highway robbery for less than an hour of work time. That's more than twice my dealership's rate.

Some oil in the intercooler hose is normal so I wouldn't be too concerned unless you have other symptoms that align with turbo failure. As far as the clamps go I would recommend checking them every time you change your oil just to be safe.

[AutoRacer100]

$300 for that is highway robbery for less than an hour of work time. That's more than twice my dealership's rate.

Some oil in the intercooler hose is normal so I wouldn't be too concerned unless you have other symptoms that align with turbo failure. As far as the clamps go I would recommend checking them every time you change your oil just to be safe.

The guy told me there were excessive amount of oil in the hose. That is one of the reason he said to charge me $300 for a 10 min job.

What are the symptoms of a ready to go turbo?

[bakedziti]

The ECS clamps I received with this IC were complete shit, IMO. I broke one the day of install and another when I had to remove a clamp for some work. I ended up replacing them all with some vibrant clamps from amazon that didn’t rust on me immediately.



Depending on where the clamp is located, you can possibly make adjustments or swap the originals out, but it depends on where the screw portion of the clamp is oriented. You’ll simply need to remove the nut on the end of the t-bolt and open it up to wrap it around or remove the current clamps.

When I installed this IC on my old car, I made sure I could access the tank end clamps through the fog light grilles with a ratcheting 10mm close-ended wrench. I left the wrench in the trunk and dealt with looking at the end of the t-bolts knowing these can pop off and would rather not strand myself. The only ones that may be difficult to access are the few located under the turbo or between the lower and upper charge pipes on the intake manifold side.

[AutoRacer100]

The clamp that broke off is located at the intercooler connecting to the hose to the intake. I opened up the engine hood and I can't see the intercooler nor the clamp. The clamp at the intake/throttle body is easy to work with. But not the one at the button where the intercooler is located. Do you have a link to the clamps that you ordered from Amazon?

[mtroxel]

The guy told me there were excessive amount of oil in the hose. That is one of the reason he said to charge me $300 for a 10 min job.

I wouldn't believe much of anything that shop tells you after blaming the price on this^^^

You had a boost clamp break, then a shop screwed you over good. That's it. Stop worrying about your turbo being on its death bed.

[Theiceman]

I wouldn't believe much of anything that shop tells you after blaming the price on this^^^

You had a boost clamp break, then a shop screwed you over good. That's it. Stop worrying about your turbo being on its death bed.

Consider the 300 penance for being too lazy to check it yourself

Sent from my SM-G973W using Audizine mobile app

[AutoRacer100]

Consider the 300 penance for being too lazy to check it yourself

Sent from my SM-G973W using Audizine mobile app

I wasn't thought about anything to do the boost leak because the transmission won't shift from 2nd to 3rd really thrown me off. I was pretty something wrong with the transmission. I couldn't check the boost hose anyway since I can lift the car up.