The car was being driven, started to smoke severely through the exhaust and just quit. It's a gas turbo. Is it common for these to fail?

turbo failed yes it will let oil in the exhaust thats your smoke replace turbo. clean engine well change oil and that should fix problem.

The white smoke you are seeing is steam. From your description, sounds like you have coolent seeping into the combustion chamber, mixing with your fuel/air, and exiting out through your exhaust as steam. 1, blown head gasket. 2. cracked head or block, 3, warped head due to overheating. Most common is #1.

The exhaust pressure sensor is located at the drivers rear of engine by turbo. You have to remove the air inlet tube and charge air cooler tube to access it in vehicle. If you are also getting a 0299 code take it to a shop that has a smoke machine and fittings to check for intake air leaks. The air inlet hose between filter and turbo is a common fault point for this code anyway. Be advised that 3.0 turbo of this age could be losing all boost and that means turbo replacement or much bucks replacing gaskets.

A worn turbo or broken would create smoke. Blue or Gray smoke is either worn rings or a clogged PCV. White smoke is from foreign fluid entering the engine. Typically indicative of a head gasket leak. Black smoke is Leaking injectors or an ignition problem or an issue with the turbo.
If you are experiencing a loss in power then you most likely have a worn turbo bearing.

Turbo is bad, when you start seeing black exhaust turbo has gone out completely. Depending on how old the turbo is and how hard it is driven, how many miles and so forth.

you didnt specify if this is a 6L or 6.4L since its an 07 it could be either. If 6.0L, White smoke typically indicates a blown egr cooler and this usually damages the egr valve which may cause it to fail open allowing the coolant to enter the combustion chambers and be burnt and cause white smoke, If its a 6.4L I have seen the highside turbo bearings fail causing poor performance and seal failure resulting in oil getting into exhaust, high exhaust temps make it burn and it may appear as a whitish colored smoke depending on severity. Hopefully for you its a 6.0L becuase the 6.4L turbo r&r is a repair where we remove the entire cab from the truck. However your not much better off with 6.0L since egr cooler/oil cooler job can easily run you $1500-2000.

have you driven it at least 100 miles since repair?, the oil residue builds up inside the exhaust and burns off very slowly from the previous failed turbo seal.

how far did you drive it after installing turbo??? sometimes you need to take it out on the highway for several miles to burn everthing out of the exhaust system.

it sounds like your turbo has packed in firstly the oil seal in your turbo has failed thats why ur seeing oil from exhaust & the whistling from turbo is the vanes in turbo breaking up so i would advise not to use car until new turbo is fitted & inter cooler pipes and inter cooler itself are checked & cleaned for swarf from turbo you can check turbo by disconnecting turbo pipe &inspecting turbo vanes (fins) to see if broken up or any damage to chamber.

blue smoke out of 1.8 turbo its allways bad oil seal inside turbo.need new turbo or rebuild OEM. with 24 years experience working with vw never seen single headhasket go bad on 1.8 turbo engines.blue smoke its 100% turbo every time