High Oil Consumption Linked to EGR Cooler and Valve Issues?
 

I've had a V70 for five years and 102,000 of its 122,000 miles and up until 2021 it provided reliable running in exchange for full Volvo dealer servicing.

From about 50,000 miles it started to consume oil at an increasing rate and now requires around a litre per thousand miles. That is far too much. There is no evidence of any leak in, around or under the car.

At 114,000 miles the EGR cooler became blocked with soot and needed replacing. An eye watering sum of money.
At 122,000 miles the EGR cooler problem returned.
In both cases symptoms included the Engine Check warning illuminating, rough idle, and a heavy 'thrumming' engine tone when running under power.

Excessive soot build up suggests dirty combustion - oil?

If oil is entering the combustion process or the exhaust gas train then how?

Some possibilities are: turbocharger bearing inlet side, inlet valve guides, piston rings, exhaust valve guides, turbocharger bearing exhaust side.

There are hundreds of people with high oil consumption, EGR Cooler and EGR Valve issues posting on here and probably thousands with the same issues who aren't posting.

I believe there may be a link between high oil consumption and the EGR system issues and that simply replacing the EGR cooler without addressing the cause is going to result in multiple, expensive and unnecessary EGR cooler replacements.

Does anybody have experience of successful resolutions to these issues?

You got it backwards.... the egr cooler isnt the cause, its the effect/symptom of oil vapor /burned oil mixed with soot to block your egr cooler those egr coolers are near to impossible to replace .
Remap your engine and let them write away the egr, even without excessive oil consumption its caking the rest of the inlet route.
the cause of the excessive oil consumption needs to be ruled one by one.
The first easy one is checking fuel corrections in vida if fuel corrections are excessive on the plus side it can be to compensate bad compression in stead of a bad injector...
Causes of bad compression can be piston rings or valve stems/seats wich can be ruled out or confirmed with a squirt of oil during a compression test, if the compression increases after some oil in the cilinder its due to bad piston rings
Turbo can be checked on axial and radial play/ excessive oil in the intercooler or just a noisy turbo.

@5cilinder:
Thanks for the input.
Obviously the EGR cooler is the effect and burning oil is the cause but the 'fix' Volvo offer is a service exchange EGR cooler without identifying the cause, hence the rapid recurrence of the problem.
What are your views on using Eco+, Normal, or 'S' as driving styles?

In relation to what? Fun? fuel consumption? oil consumption? internal pollution?

If your smart enough to conclude that the dealer only fixes their wallets
Why bringing your out of warranty car there?
They are expensive ,always the "official (expensive)protocols"
Its an horrible bureaucratic "authority that is praised by the volvo cult also on this forum (not all but many) and not to be questioned
Try to fix it yourself ,there are many sources and hobbyist with instruction clips on youtube to help you.
If you cant or want do it yourself...seek out an independent garage without the marble floors and suits (where you pay for) and good credentials

I can say that from a driving perspective in my D4 Geartronic, ECO+ is very dull and boring and a waste of the D4's power and eight-speed gearbox.

Sport is great for windy roads and if you really want to get on. It can be a bit noisy at times, however, and when holding the car on the brakes the engine revs a bit since drive isn't automatically disengaged as it is in Normal and ECO+.

I tend to use Normal mostly as it's less dull than ECO+ and less noisy that Sport.

I can also say that Volvo in Maidenhead replaced my EGR cooler a year ago for free courtesy of Volvo goodwill, and my car's a 2014 64-reg that had over 130K miles on it at that time.

Ah its the d4 ....then i know your cause of oil consumption its the loose piston rings that coke up with carbon... to save the planet:teeth_smile:

Alien also posted this issue in the very-long-and-full-of-woe S60/V60 2011-2018 EGR thread and told us more about his car. :)

So we are assuming this is a VEA engine?

Missed that one ..... but the hard lesson is : Dont buy a flawed gearbox with saving the planet software
And dont buy an engine with loose piston rings and too small drain holes which coke up with carbon to TRY to save a few grams co2 but cost a lot more co2 in the end to save the planet once more :tongwink:

But hey there are also cam belts that try also to save the polar bears nowadays that are running in sump oil and break when it disolves in the oil

Its a cult ....mistrust companies who try to surf the wave of lies
Its all patchwork to present the paperwork in the brochures but never work in the real world...but most people with their paper pushing bs jobs dont even understand or want to understand how engineering works and something as complex as "climate" cant be manipulated with some bureaucratic communistic manipulation....
In the medevil days they sold papers to go to heaven..... now we have this s hit to keep people busy...:tounge_smile:

Same as those people driving subsidized electric cars not knowing that their electricity comes from coal 50 miles away including transport losses , its deferred emission

To misquote two people:" When I here the word Green I reach for my revolver."

"There are lies, damn lies and Public Relations." 😀👍