So I just finished fueling, and grabbed some food, and a fresh cup of coffee. I leave the truck stop, and get onto the highway entrance. It's an up hill slope, entrance, and I have 49,000 lbs on the truck, and I hear a huge "POP !!". I knew that sounded like trouble, and I felt a tremendous loss in power, and my girl, is spitting sputtering, and farting. I got right off the exit, and headed to the nearest Freightliner stealership, ten miles away. What a struggle, to gain more than even 15 MPH. I get there, finally, and explain what happened. A mechanic, comes out to my truck, and pops off the air inlet hose, on my engine, and looks at whats left of the turbine, in the turbo, and shows me. "Here's your pop noise" he says. I'll be into this ***** for about $6,000.oo by the time They get me fixed between labor, and parts, and diagnose, and motel, etc.. He did a diagnose, and found some bad injectors, as a result of the turbo going bad also. This sucks. I was on my way, to Montreal, for a morning delivery, with a time sensitive load. I called another of my drivers, and he came up from 155 miles away, to pick up the trailer, and drop me, his empty one, and deliver the load. It will be late, if he doesn't hurry to the delivery. He's still got 425 miles, to the customer, in Montreal, Canada. This sucks. Stuck here, in Dunmore, Pa. at a stealership.

Holy Guacamole!!

I don't like "poping sounds" when I drive ...

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Man! That sucks!

I wonder if folks on this forum breathe a sigh of relief when they realize how "cheap" we get it when we complain about our $1000+ repairs...which I'm sure I'm looking at when the CLK comes back from a "B service" and convertible top operation issues!

Btw, how do you find time to surf MBShop?

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2009 ML350 (106K) - Family vehicle
2001 CLK430 Cabriolet (80K) - Wife's car
2005 BMW 645CI (138K) - My daily driver
2016 Mustang (32K) - Daughter's car

He does it while he's driving!

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You don't need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows - Robert A. Zimmerman

I rember seeing a big rig take off from a light here and all of a sudden halfway through the intersection his rig shakes and belches out black smoke.. I think something broke

Correct, I spend a lot of time, on the laptop, while driving down the road. I keep it on, almost all the time. I have a broadband card, which basically turns the laptop, into a big cell phone. It works well, and I use it whenever I have no WIFI connection. Most of the time when I'm on the forum here, I'm also in motion. I have a laptop stand, in between the seats, (Just like the cops). This puts the laptop, in a relatively safe, and convenient location, for use while on the go.

As a mechanic, I still don't understand why people keep driving after they hear a really bad sound.

I bet your parts bill would have been significantly less if you had pulled over, stopped the engine and called a tow truck as soon as you heard the POP.

Nope, Not in this case. The fins on the turbine were already gone at that point, The only issue, was the turbo itself, and the injectors were having problems for the last few weeks with a skip. They are completely, unrelated issues. The new turbo went in today, and the truck runs great now, save for the skipping injectors, which will be done at 07:00, this morning. I did what was safe, to take the truck and myself, out of a possibly dangerous horse shoe shaped highway entrance, and ran the truck the next ten miles, on the highway, to the dealer. I talked with the mechanic about all of this, both ahead of time, and afterwards, and was told the damage was done already, and I'd be ok to drive her in, if I could make it. I didn't need any more parts for the job, than I would have from the start. When replacing a turbo, on one of these things, you replace all of these parts, every time, no matter what anyways. Like doing a timing set, on a Subaru, VW, or Ford V-8. While you're in there, you may as well throw on a new water pump, while you have her opened up already.Even, if there hasn't been a problem with the water pump. I do the same with steer tires, and such. If I have a steer tire blow out, I automatically replace both of them. Same goes, for brake issues, etc.

I see. That makes more sense now that I know more background of the event. I just hate seeing people cause more damage than necessary to save a few bucks and avoid a tow bill.

The unskilled drivers where I work are always driving the overheating trucks back to the shop after they plug the radiator with insulation. It would only take 30 minutes for me to reach the job site, blow out the radiator and get them working again but they keep driving it back to the shop anyways. I'm just waiting for one of them to blow a headgasket or crack a head.

One crew even got fired after they hit something with their truck, didn't report it right away and later tried say I did it when we found the damage.

Yeah, I understand that.
I was a mechanic, at a Sysco Foods, working on big trucks, years ago, when I first started driving. I used to see the drivers do the same sort of thing you're talking about, so they could get their days work done, and limp the truck into the shop by noon, with twice the amount of problems they started out with. I have a lot of mechanical background on both cars, gas and diesel, and trucks, so I pretty much knew what I was dealing with from the start of it all. I see, and very much appreciate where you are coming from with what you said, in your post. If it had looked, or seemed to me, like it would have been worse off, by driving it, I would have called a wrecker out there, to pull my a$$ in, to the dealer. One of those things you know..? When you just know what you're dealing with from the start..? I had also considered the risk of the parts from the turbo, getting sucked into the engine, and doing more damage, or having the thing pump out all of my oil from the exhaust stack, and making a real mess of things. I thought this all through ahead of time, and something told me I'd be ok, and that it wouldn't happen. Again, experience, wasa the leading factor. I also talked with the dealership mechanic, on the phone, as a safe measure, to see what he recommended, to be sure I was right. Turned out well, thank the manufacturer. So now, I'm at the dealership, in Dunmore,Pa. getting this sucker done. Well, I'm going to sleep, for the morning, and I should be awake by noon, or something. I hope I wake up, to a fixed truck though. You have a great day at work. Just think about my Detroit 60 series, with a bad injector, or three, and a bad turbo, and be glad it wasn't you....LOL

Nick

My uncle went through many problems with his Series 60. He was sure happy to trade it in for a truck with a Cummins.