Turbo whine when cold - normal?

[Otto]

Recently, as the weather has gotten colder down here, I noticed the turbo whines very loudly for the first 5 minutes or so after a cold start. The whine clearly kicks in around 2500 rpm. I am pretty sure this is normal but just to make sure, I thought I'd ask if others are experiencing this.

I'll mention it to my dealer when I take the car in for a couple other small issues (remote start doesn't work and I hear a hollow knock-like noise coming from the front suspension in certain situations), but that probably won't happen until January, as I'll be in Europe all December long.

 

[TheMAN]

you ought to let the engine warm up as it is bad for it not to as well as the turbo

 

[Otto]

you ought to let the engine warm up as it is bad for it not to as well as the turbo

While that's certainly true for getting the most life out of your engine, I seriously doubt everyone will (or has time) to warm up their engine in the morning. I take care not to rev it past 2.5k and use only quality synthetic oil.

My parents have a Skoda Octavia w/ a 1.8l turbo engine (basically from VW), which is 5 years old now with no problems, despite running cold. Not saying it's good for the engine or turbo, but this argument could be made for any engine, period.

 

[Platonium]

Under the conditions you have explained it is expected for the turbo to be whiny when cold. It is a good idea to like you stated to try not to enter the area of the rev range where the turbo would be needed to provide significant boost when cold (particularly is oil has not circulated fully throughout the system), as that would be damaging to the bearings of the turbine. The turbo will spool however, even when the engine is cold out of necessity. In fact whether you notice substantive boost or not, the turbo is always spinning, so I agree with your assessment that 2500 rpm when the engine is "cold" is not likely to damage the engine nor the turbocharger. My one turbo car previous to this whined when cold as well, even when not "romping" on it.

 

[mikey1981]

just take a min and let the rpms drop to as close to regular idle as possible before you have to leave