PMF looks at the support offered to factors and their customers by BTN Turbo, at point-of-sale and beyond.
There’s a lot of confusion in the market about the differences between genuine OE products and remanufactured or reconditioned products using copy or pattern parts. Fortunately, BTN Turbo tries to keep this confusion down to an absolute minimum. Claiming to be the only UK distributor for all the major brands, including Honeywell Garrett, BorgWarner, Holset, Mitsubishi and IHI, BTN supplies turbos that are all 100% OE – either brand new or remanufactured by the original manufacturer.
To ensure factors retain their customers’ confidence, all turbos supplied by the company are supported by a two year warranty. The components also include free FitKits with all the parts needed to fit them, with the additional option to purchase a wide range of oil feed pipes – saving factor customers’ time and providing extra peace of mind.
Know your turbo
Turbo part numbers can be complicated; there are often many part number supersessions during the first years of a vehicle’s manufacture. The BTN Turbo sales team provides ample support to help factors order the right turbo first time. The company’s in-house system identifies the correct unit by registration look-up, plus data from multiple sources to ensure an exact match.
Vital advice
BTN has produced a range of critical instructions for specific vehicle applications, highlighting any special fitting advice, including if it’s essential to fit new oil feed pipes or other parts when replacing the turbo. The sales team will say if a critical instruction applies to the turbo ordered. The critical instruction will be explained on the company website and there’ll be a technician’s copy in the box.
More help from the tech team
When a customer has a query about the turbo they’re replacing, the technical team is also at hand to aid with any potential issues.
It is best practice when replacing a turbo to diagnose why the old component failed, so the cause can be eliminated to stop it affecting the replacement as well. Less than 1% of turbo failures are due to manufacturing faults. The reason is nearly always oil starvation or contamination, which, together with foreign object damage, accounts for 95% of all turbo failures.
“It’s worth reminding technicians that a turbo is an integral part of the engine’s air, fuel, cooling and oil systems, so any issues with these must be rectified before the new turbo is fitted.”
It’s worth reminding technicians that a turbo is an integral part of the engine’s air, fuel, cooling and oil systems, so any issues with these must be rectified before the new turbo is fitted. Since turbos spin at up to 4000rps, even an apparently insignificant fault can have major consequences.
Quick response
If the customer still isn’t sure what’s wrong or simply wants their suspicions confirmed, the BTN tech team can examine the turbo at their Uxbridge HQ, using a precision optical instrument to analyse the reason for failure. They’ll do this automatically if the customer makes a warranty claim and – because they appreciate it’s the factor’s good will that’s at stake too – they will ensure the matter is resolved quickly.
On some occasions, a BTN expert will visit the customer’s workshop to assess a problem while the turbo is still fitted to the vehicle – another valuable time saving aspect of the company’s aftersales support.
