Rebuilding the K03(s) turbo vs. having a shop do it
 

My B6 recently started suffering from major oil blow-by (or I guess you'd just call it a blown turbo seal); drained a significant amount of oil from the intake tract, so I've decided to either (a) have the turbo rebuilt for $200-$300, or (b) rebuild myself for $50 and have it professionally balanced ($50??). Does the latter sound like a good idea? I'm mechanically apt but don't have the equipment to properly balance a turbo.

The shop that does rebuilds will also blast the housings clean, so that makes it attractive to just pay for that to be done.

The turbo has no axial shaft play and a couple millimeters radial play. Spins very freely and also sounds normal under boost. Running diode mod and MBC @ 15-16 PSI with no issues other than this (lol). Not that the increased boost is completely to blame, though I'm sure it sped things up.

Thanks!

If your seals were blown, you would be blowing smoke out the rear. Having blow by is from your pcv system. Clean the charge piping and run a catch can, problem solved.

It is blowing smoke.. at first there was a big puff and then no more for the rest of the day; another day, it smoked badly for a good 1/2 mile and let up when I used as little throttle as possible to get home. Now it smokes badly when I first get into boost and for the rest of the drive... so it's parked now.

I rewrote the original post and forgot to include that info :o

update
 

Got the turbo off my car and found that I was wrong -- there actually is "back and forth" shaft play. So will a rebuild kit eliminate shaft play?

im goion through the same thing right now...rebuild or new turbo

Ok, so I got my turbo rebuilt. Needed a new CHRA -- huge improvement in the feel of the wheel. Wheel feel. :D

I'm just waiting on my new oil feed line and manifold to turbine gasket from ECS Tuning. I took out my intercooler and all intake piping and thoroughly cleaned them with hot soapy water. After that, I dried everything and blew all the IC fins out with compressed air (there were some tiny stones and particles stuck in there from the road).

To anyone replacing your turbo, definitely clean out the intake tract and intercooler if you have oil in there. You'd be surprised how much ends up in there from a bad compressor seal.

Side note: I thought about modding the lower driver side foglight grille and removing the light so that it's open all the way across instead of just 1/2 way. This seems like it would almost double airflow to the intercooler. But I decided that I like (and occasionally need) my foglight.