Blown Turbo? Need Advice Please

[Ryanmcgrim]

I have a 2004 XC70 with 218,000 Miles on it. I've done my best to treat this vehicle well, with timely maintenance / oil changes (always synthetic), and always Volvo / OEM parts for repairs.

About a year ago, I started to notice a slight whine coming from the turbo (I assume). It tended to be very mild and go away once the car heated up. Barely audible. I just filed away the notion that I would at some point need to replace the turbo, but didn't think much more about it.

On Friday of last week I noticed the car misfiring slightly while on my way home from work. I pulled the code and it showed a P0302, indicating a misfire on cylinder 2. I assumed it was the ignition coil since I had replaced the plugs about 2 years ago. I was just a mile from an auto parts store, so I headed there, purchased an ignition coil, and put it in the car in their parking lot, noticing what looked like a fair amount of oil in the spark plug well.

I got back in the car and headed home expecting everything to be resolved, but there was no change. My house was only a mile of two from the auto parts store, so I limped it home, the misfire becoming constant / worse, meaning the cylinder wasn't firing at all by the time I got home.

This weekend I pulled all the ignition coil, cleaned the spark plug well for cylinder 2 of oil, which there was a lot of, then pulled the spark plug for inspection and replacement.

I pulled the spark plug and was mortified to see that the entire porcelain and copper end was completely gone and the threads and plug were covered in oil.

Photo of Spark Plug
Attachment 8477

Linked Version
https://i.imgur.com/hke7nJL.jpg



I checked the forums for ideas on what to do, and it seemed like the oil could potentially be leaking from the oil filler cap due to an old gasket. I had replaced this gasket a couple of years ago, but I guess it might be time again?

I manually cranked the engine over to inspect the cylinder and attempt to clean it. The cylinder head looked a little spotty, almost dirty, but not scored, from what I could tell.

I then Macgyvered a shop vac / tube situation to stick down into the cylinder to attempt to suck out the spark plug bits, if their were any. I stayed at it for what seemed like an eternity, never finding that the vac sucked anything up.

I blew compressed air into the cylinder, then fired the engine up with no spark plug to try to make sure that if there were any bits in the cylinder, they were blown out.

I put in a new plug, started her up and listened for anything out of the ordinary. Everything sounded fine. I cleared the codes and considered everything sorted, crisis averted.

I took a test drive on Saturday a couple miles to the Grocery store, and the car operated as it should but never got above 15 miles per hour around town.

Today I took the car to work (30 min highway) , and pretty soon after getting on the road the Turbo whine came on with a vengeance. Much louder than ever before.



After driving on the highway for at least 20 min, the car started to rumble much worse than before, a cloud of smoke was exiting out the tailpipe, accompanied by a burning smell, and an almost complete loss of power. I'm talking about an equivalent amount of power of a moped engine trying to push her.

At this point I was at my work exit and was able to basically coast in neutral the entire way to work (only about a 1/4 mile from this point).

I'm sitting at work without a clue as to what to do. It seems to me that the car was fine until it heated up. Should I attempt to drive it home? I just ran the engine with the car parked, and it sounds totally fine. It's not until attempting to drive does the whine come back, but obviously something serious is wrong.

I'm also now pulling codes:

P0333
P2178

I'm hoping someone here can explain to me how this could all be related, and what needs to be done. I'm thinking the problem is 100% that the Turbo needs to be replaced, but how did that foul / destroy a spark plug. Why did the engine whine increase drastically after replacing spark plug? Could the spark plug tip have shot out through turbo and put the nail in the coffin with that?

Does anyone know if the turbo can be replaced without having to take the angle gear / propeller shaft and passenger drive shaft off? I did an angle gear replacement 2 winters ago, and it was absolutely brutal. I don't think I want to have to deal with taking the angle gear off again in order to do turbo, but I'm not really in a position to pay someone $2000 to swap the turbo out.

Any insight would greatly be apprechiated.

EDIT: I just checked the oil level, which should be fine since I had it changed a week ago, and it was barely a quarter inch from the bottom of the dip stick. I guess that means driving it anywhere is a complete no go.

[ericjp]

You should be able to pull off the inlet to the turbo and feel for shaft play in the turbine itself. You'll be able to see if it's leaking in the oil out of seals as well.

[Tahoe_XC]

Does anyone know if the turbo can be replaced without having to take the angle gear / propeller shaft and passenger drive shaft off?

Turbo comes out the top. Remove the cross brace and mount. Rebuild costs ~$600 at http://www.turbo-power.com/ or get used on from Erie.

But you have a couple of things going on. The turbo failure is often tied to a clogged pcv.

As for your other issue, may be injection related.

Before doing anything, I would perform a compression and leak down test.

[Ryanmcgrim]

Turbo comes out the top. Remove the cross brace and mount. Rebuild costs ~$600 at http://www.turbo-power.com/ or get used on from Erie.

But you have a couple of things going on. The turbo failure is often tied to a clogged pcv.

As for your other issue, may be injection related.

Before doing anything, I would perform a compression and leak down test.

Ok, Thanks for your input Tahoe. I found a good turbo from a low mile car at a salvage yard near me for $150. I might just borrow a friends car and grab that so I can put it in this weekend and see where that leaves me. I have a compression gauge that I can use afterwork just to make sure it's not shot, I don't have anyway to do a leak down test.

I did the PCV about 100K miles ago, but replaced with all volvo parts and moved to synthetic oil. I was given the impression that I would never need to do that again, if I moved to synthetic, but alas, that does not seem to be the case.

When I started the car again at work, it started billowing out insane amounts of smoke, so I'm confident that the Turbo is blown, and that might be the cause of other issues, although it is probably time to replace injectors as well.

I doubt I'm going to be able to do Turbo, PCV, oil pan etc within the next week or two, Might have to pickup that $800 240 I keep seeing down the road to take to work. Always wanted one.

[hoonk]

it started billowing out insane amounts of smoke, so I'm confident that the Turbo is blown,

although it is probably time to replace injectors as well.

"insane" amounts of smoke is a symptom of a bad turbo, or a damaged piston

Before replacing anything make sure you have even compression (on all cylinders)

The broken/damaged spark plug could have destroyed your turbo - what brand was it?

If the missing spark plug pieces made it through the turbo they are caught in the catalytic convertor, bouncing around on the top of the honeycomb, destroying it. Is an emission inspection required where you are?

If you replace the turbo it will take a couple of hours on running the engine to get all of the oil evaporated out of the exhaust

Don't replace injectors - they very rarely go bad,

[Ryanmcgrim]

"insane" amounts of smoke is a symptom of a bad turbo, or a damaged piston

Before replacing anything make sure you have even compression (on all cylinders)

The broken/damaged spark plug could have destroyed your turbo - what brand was it?

If the missing spark plug pieces made it through the turbo they are caught in the catalytic convertor, bouncing around on the top of the honeycomb, destroying it. Is an emission inspection required where you are?

If you replace the turbo it will take a couple of hours on running the engine to get all of the oil evaporated out of the exhaust

Don't replace injectors - they very rarely go bad,

Ok, thanks for the good information. I will try to do a compression test on all 5 Cylinders after work today before purchasing the turbo from the salvage yard and getting into anything else. This car has been meticulously cared for, it would be a real shame if there turned out to be piston damage. I'm would honestly consider a low miles engine swap before getting rid of this car.

[hoonk]

I'm would honestly consider a low miles engine swap before getting rid of this car.

On a 04 XC70 w/ 218k !

How old is the transmission? Does Mr haldex still work?

[Ryanmcgrim]

On a 04 XC70 w/ 218k !

How old is the transmission? Does Mr haldex still work?

Hahah, I realize it doesn't make sense, but I love this thing.

It's the original transmission (besides the magnetic inline filter I added) and the AWD works great . I replace the Trans fluid every 60K using the gibbons method, replaced the angle gear plus sleeve 2 years ago and have twice drained and filled the final drive fluid, angle gear fluid etc.

It's treated me very well.

[Astro14]

"insane" amounts of smoke is a symptom of a bad turbo, or a damaged piston

Before replacing anything make sure you have even compression (on all cylinders)

The broken/damaged spark plug could have destroyed your turbo - what brand was it?

If the missing spark plug pieces made it through the turbo they are caught in the catalytic convertor, bouncing around on the top of the honeycomb, destroying it. Is an emission inspection required where you are?

If you replace the turbo it will take a couple of hours on running the engine to get all of the oil evaporated out of the exhaust

Don't replace injectors - they very rarely go bad,

+1

Was going to say exactly the same...

[Ryanmcgrim]

"insane" amounts of smoke is a symptom of a bad turbo, or a damaged piston

Before replacing anything make sure you have even compression (on all cylinders)

The broken/damaged spark plug could have destroyed your turbo - what brand was it?

If the missing spark plug pieces made it through the turbo they are caught in the catalytic convertor, bouncing around on the top of the honeycomb, destroying it. Is an emission inspection required where you are?

If you replace the turbo it will take a couple of hours on running the engine to get all of the oil evaporated out of the exhaust

Don't replace injectors - they very rarely go bad,

I was able to run a compression test, and am a little baffled by the results (which I ran twice to make sure)

This was done Cold with all spark plugs left in besides the one I was testing. Can someone confirm that this is the correct method. Should I be removing all spark Plugs, does that matter? I can't really heat up the engine or I will smoke out the entire neighborhood. Also, keep in mind that there was evidence of oil in all the cylinders and on all the spark plugs with tha most oil in 1 and 2 and less and less as we move to cylinder 5.


Cyl 1: 155
Cyl 2: 152 (This was the broken spark plug cyl)
Cyl 3: 172
Cyl 4: 158
Cyl 5: 155


Why on earth would Cylinder 3 be 15-20 PSI more than every other cylinder? Like I said, I ran them twice and got basically the exact same results each time.

Either way, it would appear that the engine is OK enough to buy a replacement turbo, or am I not getting it?

Is the next step Turbo Install?

By the way:

Emission inspection is required where I am. I'm already thinking that I'm going to have to replace my down pipe and cat, since it's fairly rusty, and probably stuffed with oil. Any way to tell if it's plugged once I do the Turbo Swap? Any good places to source the cat and downpipe?