My wife's uncle returning to Idaho from Arizona, had the turbo shaft break in his 02 Powerstroke. Have heard this happening in big rigs, but not in pu's. Like said 02, with around 50k, I think. He said he still had some factory gurantee left, so thinks it will be taken care of. He was able to have another pu come and pull the trailer on, and was able to limp the other home. No power, and lots and lots of black smoke!!

Does this occur often???

Not very often that I've seen. Turbos are fairly reliable, but do turn a very high speeds, requireing good clean lube and maybe a cool down period before shutdown. Replaced a few turbos on gas Chrysler products a few years ago but not many on diesels whether small or large engines. bob..........

Yup--my cummins 345k and still rolling. Thought the turbo was seeping oil once, but it wasn't. It is an amazing rig. Some day the body and bed will fall in the middle of the road, but the powertrain will keep on. Several of our farm tractors are getting close to 10k hrs, without any turbo situations. Had one about twenty years ago that had to have the turbo replaced twice because they started seeping oil. Faulty rebuilds!

Update--seems like the rubber hose connecting to the air-to-air blew off, with a BANG!! Seems like the owner spilled some oil on the hose, and that soften it up enough to blow off under pressure. Funny it happened where it did, as he had already pulled the grade into Ely, and was on the North side. But it is all a grade when your Northbound through Nv. Have heard of this happening on big rigs, but not on a pu.

I blew my hose a few times running higher boost over 20lbs. I cleaned it with carb cleaner and stuck them with hair spray. No more blow offs.

I was told that for certain models there is a recall that replaces certain peices to cure this ailment. You might want to check into it to see if yours is one. This one was a '05, I believe.

The 6.0 Powerstrokes had weak turbos. At one point, they were actually on backorder. The worst problem is that for the early failures, anyway, all they got was a reman of the same weak turbo.