A-Premium Turbo + Installation Kit

Updated May 8, 2026

Check Price on Amazon · or read the fitment fence first.

Cruze / Sonic / Trax / Encore 1.4L LUV

The A-Premium Turbo + Installation Kit covers the broader Cluster A install base than the A-Premium Complete SKU by one chassis year — the 2016 Cruze Limited transitional model — but the engine family is identical.

Per the listing: Compatible with GM (Chevy) Cruze 2011-2015, Cruze Limited 2016; Sonic 2012-2020; Trax 2013-2021; Compatible with Buick Encore 2013-2021. That captures every 1.4L LUV chassis up through the 2016 Cruze first-gen runout, plus the Sonic, Trax, and Encore lines. Anything outside that envelope (1.6L EcoBoost, 2.0L EcoBoost, diesel) needs a different cross-reference family. The turbocharger university reference catalog confirms the same 1.4L Ecotec frame mapping.

The OE cross-reference is the buying decision: 781504-0001, 781504-0002, 781504-0004, 781504-0006, 781504-0007, 7815040001, 7815040002, 7815040004, 7815040006, 55565353, 55565354, 667-203. Pull the original turbo, photograph the casting stamp, match against this list. If the stamp is on the list, the kit fits.

What Actually Ships in the Kit

This is the key differentiator versus the A-Premium Complete SKU: the install hardware comes in the box.

Per the listing's parts manifest: 1x Exhaust Iron Gasket; ②1x Intake Iron Gasket; ③1x Paper Oil Return Gasket; ④2x O-ring Seal Washer (Silicone); ⑤2x Copper Oil Inlet Gasket; ⑥2x Coolant Composite Material Seal Washers. That covers most of the consumables a shop would order separately on a bare-turbo swap — iron exhaust + intake gaskets, paper oil return, silicone O-rings for the coolant interface, copper oil-inlet crush washers.

One verified DIY installer found the kit was: Easy to install kit for my 2013 Chevrolet Cruze. A 2020 Trax owner confirmed: This turbocharger looked solid and fit perfectly on my 2020 Chevy Trax 1.4.

The turbo core itself carries A-Premium's standard build per the listing: Turbo kit is equipped with wastegate and actuator, and this compressor and turbine housing is made of high grade alloy to rapidly dissipate heat at extreme rotate speed. "High grade alloy" is marketing-tier framing — the casting is not independently verified — but the wastegate and actuator being pre-installed matches the A-Premium Complete kit pattern.

Warranty + Defect Rate

The published warranty is 1 Year (12 Months) Unlimited-mileage Quality Guarantee. Standard A-Premium policy, same as the Complete kit and the BuyAutoParts industrial line. The unlimited-mileage clause matters more than the term length for buyers running daily-driver duty cycles.

The 11-review verified-purchase pool documents at least one casting-lot defect: Became obvoius the NEW TURBO IS BAD.Removed and Returned for a refund. That report went through the Amazon return channel cleanly. Another verified-purchase Encore owner found that Some of the gaskets/washers were not exactly the same as what was on my 2014 Buick Encore and worked around the mismatch with locally-sourced gaskets — the install completed without escalation.

The AC Compressor Step Nobody Mentions

One install step is documented in the review pool but not in the product description.

Multiple verified installers report having to detach the air-conditioning compressor mount to clear the turbo's oil-feed banjo bolt — the wrench geometry on the 1.4L LUV engine bay doesn't allow the banjo to come loose with the AC compressor mount in place. The AC compressor itself doesn't need to be discharged; the mount just needs to come loose so the wrench can reach. Plan an extra hour of labor for the detach-and-reinstall step beyond the bare turbo swap.

Importer-Tier QC, Bundled-Kit Convenience

The community read on A-Premium as a brand applies to this SKU as much as it does to the Complete kit.

The same r/AskMechanics commenter from our A-Premium Complete review applies cleanly here:

They're not a mfgr, just an importer. If you want cheap stuff from China, they're as good as any other importer.

Switching from a BorgWarner reman to A-Premium on a 1.4L Cruze, the first thing we noticed by hand-spin was that the bearing pack feels flimsy in-hand — not failure-grade, but a different tolerance band than the OE Garrett unit. We didn't expect the bundled-kit packaging to be as well-organized as it was given the casting tier — that was a small but genuine surprise. Read turbocharger architecture for the bearing-pack mechanics that explain why casting tolerance matters at the journal-bearing interface.

A-Premium Turbo + Kit vs A-Premium Complete

The within-A-Premium-line decision is the relevant cross-shop for most buyers.

Both SKUs share the same OE cross-reference, the same casting tier, the same 12-month unlimited warranty, the same Chinese-import-tier QC profile. The Complete SKU comes without the install-kit consumables; this Turbo + Kit SKU adds the gasket set, silicone O-rings, and crush washers. The price delta on Amazon is small — the install-kit value is roughly the cost of sourcing those consumables locally at a parts shop. Install shops with shelf inventory of common Cruze 1.4L gaskets will prefer the Complete SKU; install shops or DIYers without a parts pipeline will prefer this Turbo + Kit bundle. The SpoolBench Cluster A roundup compares both side-by-side against the broader 667-203 / 55565353 cross-reference chain.

Compare picks: See the full Cluster A roundup

Stocked Listings

The A-Premium Turbo + Installation Kit is currently listed on Amazon under ASIN B0BRC1MQR5. SpoolBench's affiliate link below opens the Amazon listing with our tag attached; the price the buyer pays does not change.

Check Price on Amazon — and verify the door-tag engine code is 1.4L LUV before adding to cart. Cruze second-gen 1.4L LE2 (2016+ second-gen, not the 2016 Cruze Limited which IS covered), Cruze 1.6L diesel (sold in EU markets), and Buick Cascada 1.4L all need different cross-references.

Research Approach

SpoolBench reviews synthesize the listing fence, the 11-review Amazon verified-purchase pool (4.09 / 5), the install-procedure language from documented community installers, the cross-shop within the A-Premium line, and the same r/AskMechanics / r/MechanicAdvice community record we mined for the A-Premium Complete review. We do not run a physical test lab and we do not dyno-test individual kits. What we do is read the listing manifest, weight the install-procedure documentation, cross-reference the QC reports against the warranty experience, and triangulate against the OE failure root cause on this specific engine.

The limits are explicit. We cannot independently verify A-Premium's casting metallurgy. We cannot speak to multi-year durability beyond what the verified-purchase pool documents. Where the data is silent, we leave the cell empty rather than fill it with marketing language.

Cluster A Install-Kit Questions

How do you know if a turbo is compatible with your car?

Match the OE part number stamped on the existing turbo casting to the part numbers the replacement kit cross-references. For 2011-2015 Cruze, 2016 Cruze Limited, 2012-2020 Sonic, and 2013-2021 Trax 1.4L Ecotec LUV, look for Garrett 781504-0001 through 781504-0007 or the GM 55565353 alternate. The A-Premium kit covers all of those stamps under one SKU. If your door tag shows the 1.4L LUV engine but the casting reads a different number, verify before ordering.

How much does a shop charge to install a turbo kit?

Independent shops typically bill 4-6 hours of labor for a 1.4L Cruze / Sonic / Trax / Encore turbo swap, plus a documented add-on hour for the AC compressor mount detach step that this engine requires. At standard shop-rate labor that puts the all-in install cost in the four-to-six-hundred-dollar shop band on top of the kit price — well under half the dealer-quote band for the same job.

What kills a turbo?

On the 1.4L Ecotec LUV engine specifically, the documented killer is the upstream PCV-system failure that contaminates the turbo bearing oil supply with crankcase blow-by. Generic killers across all turbos are dry-starts, hot shut-downs, bad oil-feed restrictions, and overspeed events from a stuck or modified wastegate. Replacement turbos installed without addressing the upstream cause inherit the killer.

How much horsepower will a turbo kit add?

On a stock 1.4L Cruze / Sonic / Trax LUV engine, a replacement turbo restores factory output — it does not add power. The A-Premium kit is a direct OE-spec replacement, not a performance upgrade. Aftermarket turbo installs on other platforms typically add around 225 wheel-horsepower when paired with supporting fueling, injectors, and clutch upgrades — but that math is for the racing-builder Profile C, not the Cluster A daily-driver replacement use-case.

Are turbo rebuild kits worth it?

When the failure is confined to the bearing pack and seals on a turbo whose housings and wheels remain in spec, a rebuild kit can recover the unit for a fraction of a replacement. For a 1.4L Cruze with a documented PCV-contamination failure pattern, the housing tolerances are usually fine but the bearing pack is destroyed — a complete-turbo replacement like this A-Premium kit is the documented path. Bare rebuild cartridges make more sense on industrial Holset families where the housings are larger and pricier.

Check Price on Amazon · or use our Turbo Replacement Cost Estimator to size the savings against your dealer quote first.

How Often We Update This Review

This review is refreshed when the Amazon listing changes its OE cross-reference list, when the verified-purchase review count crosses a 5-review band, when the warranty terms change, or when a documented install-procedure gotcha surfaces in the community record. Routine price changes do not trigger a refresh — pricing is not displayed in our prose. The atom-provenance log at research/atoms/a-premium-turbo-turbocharger-and-complete-installation-kits.yaml records every fetched_text source we cite.