r1de23

I have a 2000 A6 2.7T that i bought as a winter car. It has roughly 150k. The car ran great until this morning. The temperature was -25 with the windchill. It started right up like usual and I drove it down the street to the grocery store. I look in my rear view and I see an unusual amount of smoke. At first I thought it was the cold exhaust but it smelled like burning oil. I turned around and make it back home. I saw a puddle of oil in the driveway where it was previously parked.

I popped the hood to investigate a bit. Coolant level was normal. Oil level was low with a tiny bit of milky oil on the oil cap. I glanced under the engine and noticed some oil dripping from the rubber hose coming from the driver's side intercooler. I pulled it off to see if there was oil in the hose. It gushed oil all over the ground. There is also minor milky residue on the exhaust tips. The exhaust just smells like oil. Is this symptoms of a blown turbo? or headgasket? My initial thoughts were that is was a blown driver's side turbo. Thanks for the help.

By the way, the car runs perfectly fine, no unusual turbo noises either..

mpw

I don't have an answer for you, but I seem to recall seeing posts over the years about frozen PCV systems. You might do some searching both here and on the other forum.

r1de23

Interesting.. I will look into it. Thanks.

2.7Lturbo

things to think about:

has is ever smoked before?

have you checked the PCV system?

are you SURE it was oil? i may SMELL like oil as you obvioulsy have some accumulated in your intake track but it could be something else, what was the color of the smoke?

oil in the intercooler is regrettably normal in small quantities, but enough to pour out or scare people.

the big thing to remember is turbo seals dont magically go overnight, they either gradually wear to the point where it builds up, or there is catastrophic damage that occures a you know instantly you broke something.

if it is indeed the turbos the good news is your winter car can now have 400+hp turbos installed !!!!!

r1de23

The car never smoked or made any bad turbo noise. The oil in the IC hose was excessive compared to what im used to seeing. The smoke is mostly white. The exhaust smells like burning oil. I will inspect the PCV/breather system tomorrow. My oil level was low BTW.

2.7Lturbo

dont think its turbos... seals going out and oil burning is a distinct blue smoke. haha i had to watch it all the way from laguna seca to LA....... anyways me thnks you have a clogged pcv that is sending oil intot he intake and the smoke from the exhaust is mostly water mixed with oil vapors, hence the burnt oil smell but not the blue smoke

r1de23

Should i pull apart my pcv system and clean it out? What do you recommend?

2.7Lturbo

i would :

1 . clean out all oil from intake track and run car / check for improvements

2. check the pcv system and make sure there are no blockages



do those then report back

r1de23

Will do tomorrow, thanks for the help.

r1de23

I started to pull apart the breather/PCV system and intake, there was alot of frozen oil/water mixture in the pipes. I pulled apart the pcv Valve and ended up breaking the hard plastic line connecting to the bottom of the valve. i was thinking about replacing the line with a rubber hose instead.