A4-Freddy

Long time member, away for quite some... My recent tale of woe: on camping trip in remotest Idaho, car suddenly died as we pulled to a stop at our campsite after a long day (silver lining: better to be stranded there than on a deserted forest service road in the dark) Produced what can only be described as a moan and a clattter. Though I was a passenger at the time, there were no noticeable symptoms on the drive-in beforehand that I perceived. Driver immediately attempted to restart, but car only moaned and wheezed and would not catch. Screw it, let's make dinner, I said.

After dinner, I went to try and start her myself. More wheezing and what sounded like valve clattering, but she was sputtering and barely turning over on her own. On a whim, I goosed the gas and as the engine climbed to 2k all clattering stopped. Let go of the gas, as the engine dipped back down towards 1k the clattering resumed and I very immediately shut it down. Screw it, time for a beer by the fire.

12 hours later I tried again: car started with slight clattering but immediately settled down and sounded fine. Idled fine for a few minutes that way, took a quick drive, still good. After much conferring decided to take it in to the nearest town (no kidding, population 63) which happened to have a garage with a mechanic. I suspected an oil flow issue somewhere. He'd never done much with a 1.8t, so I asked him to drop the subframe\pan and check out the pickup tube for debris, get some fresh oil and filter along the way.
He did indeed find some large and small pieces of black plastic in the screen. Not clogged, but a decent amount. They looked kind of like pieces of something from when the old crankcase vent hoses disintegrated some time back. Per the mechanic it was refilled Sinclair's house 0w30 syn, which was all the syn he really had on hand. I normally run Rotella T6 5w40.

Car seemed fine on the way back to camp, and on a few quick runs to nearby trails and lakes. The fun started on the way home (Idaho and to California). Several times when I came to a stop at lights and signs on the first leg I faintly smelled burning oil. Not strong, and I suspected either it was burning off from some mess that was left from the work or perhaps leaking from the reset pan job maybe.

After 3 hours of solid driving, stopped for 15 minutes to grab chow. Got back in, started car, and was treated to an enormous cloud of white\blue out the exhaust. Checked oil and looked it was down about 1/3 of a quart from where we'd started. No mechanic in sight, so I made the decision to stock up on oil and run for home. Made it home, putting in about 1.5 quarts in 800 miles. Burning oil smell got progressively worse to the point where it nearly overwhelmed my passengers when running through towns. Otherwise car running great. No more clatters.

Symptoms at this point:

Things I’ve done:

Attached some photos and video.. searching for tips on this type of things is like finding 400 needles in a haystack, and none of them quite the same, so not sure where to go next to narrow this down and would appreciate any opinions. Valve stems.. turbo.. PCV stuff..?

https://goo.gl/photos/dfnxM7sA8eY3snv66

lyleswk

Based on your description, I would say your turbo has let go. Looks like a lot of oil is getting into the intake and drifting up from the turbo or maybe you have a slight exhaust manifold leak. There is no obvious crack or anything like that when inspect the turbo casing or crack in the oil line to the turbo?

edit: One other thought after I posted. Based on the noise, I would say you may have an issue with the cam adjuster. Does anyone know if there is a oil leak possibility from the cam adjuster?

A4-Freddy

Thanks for the reply. I'll have to pull a few more covers and things and do some more examination to see if I can better sort out where the smoke from inside the engine compartment is emanating from.

FWIW my phone makes the engine sound way worse than it actually does, but your other comment is worth consideration too. I had been thinking of replacing the cam adjuster, been getting some cam chain rattle out of it as I pass through RPM bands - which I've had happen once prior on a different car (same engine) so kind of know what that sounds like. While I know bad seals there can cause leaks out the back side of the valve cover area, didn't remember it having a way to get oil into the combustion side...

Can a problem turbo pass burnt oil directly into the exhaust side? I kind of assumed with the amount of oil I'm consuming I would see evidence across all four cylinders, but 1 & 2 looked pretty clean.

What about PCV issues? I read a lot of disparate threads talking amount excess pressure there causing things like this, but not even sure how to begin diagnosing that one. With the oil cap off I get about what I would call a weak hairdryer amount of air blowing out of the opening at idle.

lyleswk

Would love for the family Bally to jump in here, but I don't think there would be smoke to come from the turbo directly into the exhaust. It would just add the oil to the intake charge, burn it, and come out the exhaust that way. But again, you should be able to see a leaky exhaust or something cracked to have that much smoke coming out. Also, take a good look at the SAI.

As far as "PVC" issues (remember, we don't really have a PVC system), I guess that is possible, but that is a serious problem that would be getting a lot of oil past the cylinders...