oily intercooler air charge hose

[von dutchoven]

i spent the better part of yesterday redoing the pcv system on my 2001. i was amazed at how plugged up the nipple was. while i was cleaning the rubber hose for the intercooler i noticed the it was really sticky were the oil had accumulated (duh) but it stayed sticky even after cleaning... like the hose is being eaten. i used engine cleaner and some dish washing liquid. WTF. let me say that the end of the hose were there was little to no oil is fine. has anybody else had this issue?

[JRL]

They all do, some more than others, especially if your breather was clogged

[von dutchoven]

They all do, some more than others, especially if your breather was clogged

it's not the fact that it has oil on it what i am wondering is why is the hose degrading. i have never seen a hose act like this except for when i added an full flow oil filter to my vw and the guy at auto zone gave me some 1/2" line that wasn't rated for oil lines.

[RockitShip]

Enough oil over a long period of time will degrade plastics, rubber. The oil carries the waste of the engine; gas, solvents, etc. too which add to degradation.

[billr99]

Every turbo car I've had (Volvo (3), SAAB (3), VW (2)) has exhibited the intake tubes "sweating" an oily film. Total mileage on the car doesn't seem to matter as there has been a broad range on the cars I've had. For the first time, I have used silicone tubes on my XC and, so far after 50K kms or so, no sweating.

Cheers,

Bill

[guyeye]

I agree with Bill. My hoses were degrading so badly, I replaced them all with silicone. It should be standard in my opinion. The only thing to watch out for with silicone is, you need to really crank down your hose clamps, much tighter than with regular rubber. The silicone is just more resilient and the hose barbs don't "bite" into them as readily. I've blown my hose off my ETM twice. I've been thinking about upgrading to better hose clamps.

[billr99]

I agree with Bill. My hoses were degrading so badly, I replaced them all with silicone. It should be standard in my opinion. The only thing to watch out for with silicone is, you need to really crank down your hose clamps, much tighter than with regular rubber. The silicone is just more resilient and the hose barbs don't "bite" into them as readily. I've blown my hose off my ETM twice. I've been thinking about upgrading to better hose clamps.

I use t-bolt clamps on my silicone tubes. They don't bite into the silicone and they apply even pressure around the connection. They are also a bit wider than regular clamps which seems to help keeping them where they should be.

Cheers,

Bill