Is the TRD supercharger worth getting (Scion tC)?

[CJP]

I'm wanting to get a new Scion tC for my new car. I've considered the supercharger but I've been hearing that its a waste of money, because it causes so many problems? What sorts of problems specifically?Would it be better to just get the car stock and then put in a different supercharger or turbo myself? Do you have any personal experiences with this? In the long run, which would be better? Which will have less problems? And is it worth getting? All help with be appreciated, but serious comments only please. Don't reply if you're going to be a smartass or if you don't know what you're talking about. Thanks in advance.

[czimme3]

Wouldn't it be better to get a car that's reasonably quick right off the showroom floor rather than buying some piece of junk and then trying to upgrade it?

[emiller1998]

Don't waste your money on the TRD supercharger. Its poorly designed and unreliable.

I had an 05 tC SC that had both of the common problems with the supercharger.
- SC #1. The pulley side bracket broke after about 15k miles and they replaced the entire supercharger because Toyota only sells complete kits.
- SC #2. It was replaced with the redesigned version with much larger brackets for the compressor and pulley and I was told that it was much better than the original one. In my case my better meant it lasted a whole 10k miles before the compressor side bracket broke which caused the bearings to sieze up. Then what was left of the inside of the supercharger ended up inside my engine all in a matter of about a mile. Warranty covered the supercharger but not the engine even though there were bits of metal all over in the intake hose and throttle body.

The original supercharger's were built by Vortech (with some Toyota packaging help). Vortech makes good stuff and has lots of experience with superchargers which makes this whole thing somewhat odd. The problem lies in putting the pulley on the end of a 2' long shaft causing a lot of stress on the brackets and bearings. Thanks Toyota for doing such a poor packaging job.

Currently the broken ones are rebuilt by Magnussian but that does nothing for the original design problem.

Put the same money into a quality turbocharger which will make more power and last more than 15k miles before it breaks.