Thread: Periodic oil smoke?

Hey guys. As of late, my car has been burning some oil. Its strange because the car doesn't constantly smoke, it just does it here and there. It doesn't necessarily only do it after its driven hard either. It just kind of comes and goes. I comp tested it a while ago when I first started noticing it (IDR the actually #'s as this was sometime in august) but while they were a little low, they were all pretty close to each other (within 5 psi). The car has been sitting for about 3 months as I'm away at school. When I went home for thanksgiving I drove it and it did it again.

So basically my question is can the turbo itself be the cause of this seemingly random smoke? If theres a seal on its way out in the turbo can it periodically smoke and then go back to normal or would it smoke all the time? Or are my rings just tired being that its a stock boosted DE around 180k miles?

Thoughts appreciated

pcv valve ?

I would think that the conditions the turbo see`s any of the seals would just be done....with the coming and going nature of your oil smoke i would think pcv as well IMHO

Yes the turbo has seals in it. More than likely the turbine side seals for it to show smoke periodicly. Usually when the turbine seal goes it will smoke on deceleration when there is a reverse load on the turbine. You could do a little test leaving it at higher rpm and use the motor to slow you down from say 5500 to 6k and let off the gas completely and see if you get any smoke out the rear. If so definitely the turbine oil seal and the turbo would need to be rebuilt. If it does it under acceleration it could still be the turbine side seal or could be rings in the motor.

Or it could be the valve seals... i had a swift gti that on really steep roads, going down, under no aceleration and high vacuum on the manifold smoked really really bad... also when letting off the throttle after a hard pull did that... especially after being pretty hot and the oil thin out...

Just to add more fuel to the fire... ahahahha

It could be a number of reasons...

The pcv valve is relatively new. I'll have to try the deceleration test when I get a chance. I won't be home for another 2 weeks but I just wanna get some ideas now so when I do get home, I have some things to look for.