Hey Guys. I figured there would be some here who are interested in seeing this. I got my Flex about 6000 miles ago with dealer-installed OEM turbos about 1000 miles before that (130k total on the clock). Here's a pic of what happens to your "brand new" turbo when someone at the factory (or rebuilder, not sure) screws up. I notice two things conspicuously missing from this picture. One, there's no nut on the shaft. It spun off and the turbo ate it. Why did that happen you ask? Well, also conspicuously missing, no thread locker compound on the threads, or any other signs that they prick punched the shaft or something of that nature. Unfortunately for me, this part was installed more than 2 years ago, so out of Ford's parts warranty.
I also need to buy a new charge air cooler because that's full of metal pieces now. Needed replacement anyway, as the cooling fins are mostly bent over on the lower side of it, but I was putting that off. Lucky for me none of the crap made it all the way up into the combustion chambers. I scoped each cylinder and aside from the typical carbon buildup, they're clean and no scoring on the cylinder walls. I'm surprised because I did see a little bit of material that made it into the last intake tube, but it didn't make it all the way up and through the throttle body apparently.
I'd like to thank ONLYA6 and his writeup here:
http://www.ecoboostperformanceforum.com/index.php?topic=2023.0 because it was a HUGE help on the rear turbo removal. Factory manual says remove the subframe. It's a pain, but as long as you remove ALL of the little heat shields, it can be wiggled past everything. I'm swapping the front turbo too because that one has a bad seal and I'm worried about it failing in the same way.
Got a brand new pair of turbos from CF Power up in Brea California for a very good price. I'll let everyone know how they perform and if they have premature failure. I don't anticipate that though because the rep told me the company was one of the manufacturers that bid to be the OEM supplier but didn't get the contract, so they're supposedly up to Ford's OEM spec.