I have 150k and have no idea whether or not the supercharger has ever been swapped out or had it's oil changed.

I know that the typical life expectancy is below 150k but was wondering who has had the longest lasting one. Juggling whether or not to keep the car or not. Super busy and the car has lots of other issues that have come up.

Also, what is it like when they fail? Can you make it home?

Thanks.

 

This is the sort of ‘it depends’ kind of question you are asking since each driver drives and maintains (or doesn’t) their car. Not to mention number of owners etc.

Since you asked, we replaced the supercharger last year at about 230K. It was the original as far as we could tell. It was, however, not yet dead. What failed was the water pump. It seized and caused the seal on the pump to fail and mixed S/C oil into the coolant.

I bought a used by low mile S/C off an ‘06 from a dismantler as this was the gamble I was willing to take. If the seal between the pump and S/C didn’t get compromised, I probably would have put on a new pump and gambled a little more. Since this was my kid’s primary transport, that was a little bit too much risk.

 

Original supercharger with original pulley with 184k miles. At 172k I had the supercharger serviced and the water pump, thermostat and housing replaced.

But these cars have become a labor of love. Mine is currently down needing a crank pulley/harmonic balancer and will be getting a new tensioner and idler pulley at the same time. The repairs will begin to stack up and it will never make any financial sense. If you can't get comfortable with that notion, it may be better to move on. However in my experience, these cars don't do well on the resale market either.

 

Great info. Thanks!

 

Hard to say I have a local customer that last time his car was in had 270k on the supercharger and it's never been serviced.

But I also had one in this year with only 37k and serviced it while doing the water pump and found it was almost empty.

 

I did my service at 111k and it had plenty of oil still in it, really dark though. I couldn’t see any noticeable wear or play in it and it sounds amazing now with the ddmworks airbox.

 

What I would worry about is the seals drying out due to age. This is what kills things in older cars. I would change the oil and consider changing the seals if you can get a kit. Then again, that goes for most rubber parts in the car like hoses too.

 

My S/C is original and the car is 100% stock with 152k miles on it.

I wonder if it's failing though. At idle, there's noise from the engine compartment that goes away when I blip the throttle. Maybe it could be timing chain slap? I have the skills and tools to deal with whatever it may be but the car is a daily driver, so that comes into play.

 

I would use a long screwdriver as a stethoscope and listen to various components to see if you hear anything.