T5 oil filter housing...landmine for the unwary!
 

Evening All,

Just thought I'd post up a little warning for anyone who may own a T5 & hasn't changed the oil filter housing yet. If your car is over 7Ok & is on the original then you may want to invest in the £160 part & and save yourself a fortune in preventative maintenance.

My wife has a 08 C70 T5 SE on 78k with a full Volvo service history. A couple of weeks ago it threw an engine warning light whilst we were driving along a dual carriageway 20miles from home. Pulled in, engine running fine, but squealing like a stuck pig. Assumed it was a bearing on one of the auxiliaries. Contacted my local indie who assured me it was more likely to be a hole in the oil filter housing as they act as the PCV on these cars & are a known weak spot ( was news to me at the time). We drove it home gently, as advised, and parked it up. However when I went out that evening to check the engine number to order the correct part I noticed some fresh oil welling up from under the cam cover plastic above the intake manifold on the LHS of th engine as you look at it. Quick phone call to another well known specialist and turns out it's "foooked" :err::err:

We now know that it blew out the cam seal on the inlet side due to the head over pressuring under boost due to the hole in the oil filter housing. Oil on belts.
Cue car transporter & pleading phonecall to specialist to get car booked in & fixed as my wife needed it the following week for work.
So that's £1300 quid I could have done without spending just after Christmas (had the block shimmed, new cam & aux belt & as many seals etc plus gearbox flush for the ****atronic .....anything I could think of to avoid delving into the engine bay agin for a while!!) Dread to think what a main dealer would have charged.

All done & driving lovely again. But what a palaver.

Was just a heads up really, in case anyone like me had no idea these were a common (ish) failure and a potentially painful one if you get unlucky. Couldn't find a similar thread on search function - if there is one, apologies.

All the best, Morgan

Thanks for the heads up :)
Always good know , shame you found out the hard way :(

Only found out from our man in coalville that this is a an all too common failure on this generation of engines (bloody fords). Had no idea. Lucky me.

The T5 engine is definitely not a Ford unit.

Unfortunately if you'd have stopped and pulled the dipstick out slightly is would have allowed you to carry on without the pressurising effect (ask me how I know) - yup mine went suddenly a couple of years ago and I drove probably 40 miles with the diaphragm failed like this.

Typically over in the USA owners lobbied against Volvo and secured a lifetime Warranty on the Oil Housing Diaphragm and typically over here we just bend over......

The T5 is a fantastic unit and will give trouble free motoring well over 150,000 miles with just basic servicing. This oil housing being its only failing really.

Have just done the unthinkable and ordered a non-genuine replacement housing....

Was in a drive-thru and noticed the engine sounded a little strange... got it home and could hear the early beginnings of a busted diaphragm.. Pulled the dipstick and herd a slight release of pressure. Not at the squealing stage yet but I'm sure it'll get there very soon!

Hopefully I've caught it early!

Well, thats definetely against the current.
rebel! :P

out of curiosity - why? how much? and what brand/where?

It was just an unbranded one from ebay - £119

OEM was another £50 and I just couldn't afford that right now!


Looks like I'm driving with the dipstick partially out for the time being....which means a huge adjustment to driving style..gotta keep those revs down.

So I'm forced to make taxi driver gear changes until replacement PCV arrives. Normally I never stress the clutch etc.. I'd cruise around town in 3rd at 30mph at the expense of MPG.

However, this style adjustment also highlights just how much grunt these 2.5 turbos have at low rpm. From a dead standstill at a red light I was able to grunt to the 40mph speed limit finishing in 6th gear without exceeding 1500rpm... and I check the review view mirror I am a considerable distance away from the car behind me.

Car has too much torque!

woa never new about this, quite worrying!!! might do the same and just get it changed out for peace of mind as defenitly dont want this happening.

Seen this link on ebay:
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/FOR-VOLVO....c100508.m3226


But are there any better options we could replace with?

Have you tried contacting Elk Performance to enquiry about OEM price? Im not sure how/if aftermarket differs from OEM but maybe all things considered (postage etc) it will make more sense use OEM ?

Dom - really never heard of PCV issue on T5 before? its like P1 abc :} I remember when I was meeting the prev owner of my car I was greeted with "Hi, my name is Aaron, thats my T5, PCV and alternator are already sorted"
I was like "what?... ooohkayy....?" :P

haha yeh ive honestly not known about it, can only really tell you the ABC's on MG/Rover cars haha which is a lot more. Yeh will drop Elk a mail now then, could be a christmas present for the car.