What have you been told from Mazda about turbo cooldown time ? The manual says 30 secs after hard driving(highway or quick accelerations).
I'm trying to convince my wife it's needed. It's her car and she thinks she has better things to do than to wait before she shuts the car off.
Thanks.

 

30 seconds is a decent wait time to allow the turbo to spin down. Longer is even better. Let her know that when coming to a stop shortly after driving and using the turbo that the turbo can still be spinning in excess of 20,000 rpm. If you just shut the CX-7 off right away you are taking away the oil supply and lubrication to these spinning parts. Everytime that is done it shortens the life of a turbocharger.

Is just a matter of getting in the habit of coming to a stop, put in park, and then allow to idle while you are turning off headlights, picking up purse and cell phone, coffee cup etc, take off seat belt, open door, and then shut off last thing. All of those little items will add up to more time than you would think.

Have you considered installing a turbo timer? This would allow you to go ahead and turn key off, get out, etc and engine can be programmed to continue to run for whatever time you set it for. Do not know who might make one that would be compatible with an immobilizer system though.

 

Actually, dealer told me nothing about this, but I read about it in the manual. It takes a little getting used to because it's a change in habit, but given what I've read so far it's worth it!

 

Tell her failure to do so will lead to an early death of the turbo...

Then tell her she will be waiting a while for her car to work again while you save up the $4,000 it may cost to replace it.

It is a requirement of a turbo car. Turbos glow red hot and spin at high rpms. Not letting them idle down and cool off will result in no oil pressure, high rpm, high temp = dead turbo..

If she is not able to do this basic procedure, sell the car and buy her a nice non-turbo V6 car she can abuse

 

Buy a turbotimer and it will solve the problem.

 

yes turbotimer. it will take the guess work out of all of this. the other issue of shutting down that quickly is that the heat off of the exhaust will make all of the oil that is left in the turbo to evaporate and leave behind a thick gunk.

switch to a full synthetic oil and never switch back. also get a turbotimer.

 

can anyone post any links for a turbotimer? thanks [/align]

 

I don't know a lot about turbochargers beyond the basics of how they work, but Idid read in the manual that they need to cool down after running. Is it enough to drive at about idle to let it cool down? For example, I live 1/4mile frommy freeway exit through a residential zone. Igo slow through there and figure that is letting the turbo cool. I'll let it idle in the driveway for a few seconds more, but I figure it's mostly cooled down on the slow drive of more than 30 secondsfrom the freeway. Do you think that is sufficient or does it need to be completely idling?

 

Anybody have an opinion on this subject?

 

I haven't looked at the CX-7 turbo, however, virtually all OEM turbos I've looked at since roughly the early 1990s have a water cooled bearing. Assuming your engine is so equipped, then a quarter-mile stroll through a neighborhood is more than adequate to cool the bearing down.

Side note; the main enemy of turbo bearings is coked oil (due to intense heat caused by oil starvation when the flow is shut down while the turbine is still spinning); using fully synthetic oil will be a major benefit as it has a much higher coking point.

Small data point; back in the 1980s, I knew a husband/wife duo (I won't call them a "couple" because they basically hated each other). They both had cars with the Chrysler 2.2 liter Turbo-I engine in them; I instructed my friend to use Mobil 1 in his car, his wife however, would deliberately do the opposite of what he did, and in this case, used whatever oil was cheapest at Jiffy Boob. They both drove their cars hard and rarely, if ever, let the turbos spool down prior to engine shutoff. The wife's car suffered not one but two turbo failures before 100,000 miles; the husband's car was still on the original turbo at 180,000 miles when he traded it in.