2005 V50 1.8 Petrol Engine Blue Smoke

[simonmunro]

Hi Everyone,

Wondering if any Volvo guru can help me, I have a 1.8 petrol 2005 V50. It's using a fair bit of oil, approx around 0.75 litre oil per 600 miles.

Blue smoke comes out of the exhaust when you rev it hard, I've removed all the spark plugs and they are all normal in colour and indicate normal burning colour, none of them are black and sooty.

I've also done a compression test and every cylinder is giving the exact same figure of 145 psi/10bar.

Also whilst doing the compression test, removing the air filter I noticed the throttle body when opening is full of black soot/gunk.

Am I right in thinking there is a crank case breather fitted than can fail and cause blue smoke.

Any help advice would be greatly appreciated.

Also just to add blue smoke doesn't come out when you first start it from cold.

[FunkyMelon]

If you had a turbo I'd say it could be the oil seal in the turbo but given you don't, it's more than likely the valve stem seals or piston rings in the engine. Usually if it's the rings it'll be puffing blue smoke on start up too, you say it's only when revving/accelerating though, which would point more to stem steals.

What's the mileage?

[simonmunro]

140000 miles, would the rings still be gone if the compression test was bang on the same figures for all cylinders?

[ShawnFZX]

Good compression and clean plugs (usually) indicates the inlet seals and rings are good. How is the tip of the exhaust after a good long run? If it's wet and sooty that could indicate the exhaust valve seals are leaking.

Not sure if your engine has a PCV valve. But get that checked if it does. Because if that were stuck it would give you oily throttle bodies as you described.

[Andaru]

The two main things I'd consider would be either the PCV or valve stem seals. From what you've said, your rings are fine and being N/A you can rule out ringland failure almost by default.

You would be surprised how black and mucky the intake can get even on a good engine as the PCV returns the oily air after the MAF but before the throttle body, so it's kind of hard to say without pics. But your PCV could be blocked somewhere which would pressurise the system and force oil up past the control rings or not let it return to the sump properly - which then gets burned in the chamber.

You didn't say what mileage you have, but if it's high-ish then valve stem seals are a distinct and expensive possibility.

[Paul78]

My 1.8 petrol (2005) seems to use a lot of oil too. I was advised by my garage that using the "wrong" oil can result in the engine using more than it should.

Are you using 5W/30 semi synthetic?

[simonmunro]

Thanks for the replies and the info.

The car has 140000 miles on it, bit of an update I took out the air filter and noticed that there is a sponge like filter that is covered in oil.

Unfortunately ran out of time to investigate further but I'm kind of guessing that this could be where the crankcase breather feeds into just before the air filter.

Any further info appreciated, I'll try and take a couple of pictures that might help diagnosis.

I have been using 5w/30 oil

[crockey1]

Think last post spam advert.......

[celtjon]

Originally Posted by simonmunro

Thanks for the replies and the info.

The car has 140000 miles on it, bit of an update I took out the air filter and noticed that there is a sponge like filter that is covered in oil.

Unfortunately ran out of time to investigate further but I'm kind of guessing that this could be where the crankcase breather feeds into just before the air filter.

Any further info appreciated, I'll try and take a couple of pictures that might help diagnosis.

I have been using 5w/30 oil

So did you resolve this problem, the thread seemed to go silent. Was it the valve stem seals? I have a V50 with a very similar problem.

[celtjon]

some images taken as I prepare to remove the head. Inlet valve stems appear oily. https://flic.kr/s/aHskzMhm9d