Turbo Oil Leak

[Rich V]

I have a oil leak at the turbo on my 01 XC70. It's significant enough to drip in my driveway and lower the oil level a tad. I suspected the oil drain back tube but that didn't turn out to be the case.

After some digging around I found this thread:
http://volvospeed.com/vs_forum/index.php?showtopic=38783&mode=linear#topicoptions which is basically the same thing I'm experiencing. From what it looks like it's related to the PCV system. Is this common? Whats the best way to go about alleviating this problem?

[howardc64]

Looks like you found my original post. Here is an update

- My drip never got bad enough to hit the floor. But I do see some inside the belly pan. On mine V70 T5, the oil drips mostly to the front of the air vent on the belly pan that pulls in air for the turbo so there aren't any holes to get out. It gets all dried up before coming out of any holes on the belly pan. I guess your XC AWD might be different than mine here?

- I tightened the clamp per suggestion in the original post. It is a little difficult to get to from the bottom even on V70 T5. I think I used a 1/4 drive + universal. Can't tell yet if that slowed the drip. Maybe you will need to go over the top on an XC.

- Did a follow up post in volvoforum.com and found out dealers use cut up bicycle inner tubes as a seal here. And that this drip is common in all turbo cars. I've not done this yet. Haven't had enough motivation to figure out what to pull out to get to it. If you do this, like to hear your experience.

http://www.volvoforums.com/m_20133/tm.htm

I guess everyone tells me it is common so I'll stop worrying about if it is my turbo oil seals are going bad. I heard you will see blue smoke out the back if turbo seal is going. I suppose it is more oil into the intake than the PCV dumps in.

[Rich V]

Thanks for the update!

I guess I will go ahead and give it a try soon and report back my findings. I'm just hoping it's not a turbo issue. I've had enough "strange" problems on my car with only 50k on it.

[cmon4day]

I guess everyone tells me it is common so I'll stop worrying about if it is my turbo oil seals are going bad. I heard you will see blue smoke out the back if turbo seal is going. I suppose it is more oil into the intake than the PCV dumps in.

I noticed alot of oil leaking from the rear of the engine and accumulating on the top of the control arm. I suspect it's turbo seal leak.
I drove down from Tahoe recently and my son, who was following me, saw puffs of blue smoke every time I shifted down. I'm hoping this is a result of the turbo seal oil leak. Any one have any further info?

Vic

[howardc64]

If you are getting oil in th back of the engine, then it is likely from the oil return line (right where the line goes into the block). I don't think the air intake hose to the turbo can leak that bad.

It seems a little hard to trace the oil back to the return line since it makes such a big mess.

On the PCV and/or internal turbo seal. My car shows oil where the charged air pipe exit from the turbo. If you take the pipe off, you can see oil pooled between rubber hose and charged air output of the turbo. I hear others also sees this often. But my charge air pipe is pretty clean and my ETM's butterfly was pretty clean when I had it off. So I'm guessing this pooled oil just comes from the PCV dumping back into air intake and collecting here due to gravity.

This leaves one to wonder, how do you know if your turbo seal is going? I suppose we'll know when it seizes. The charged air pipe is pretty easy to remove for inspection. Not sure if one can tell whether it is PCV or leaking turbo seal by the looking at it.