Smoke!

[porkkis]

About the smoke effect.. Lambda, boost leak, MAF, check the fault codes.

[irvind]

@DR H: Thanks for the info, will hopefully find out today.. How quickly did they turn it around for you?

@Martyn: Bigger turbo sounds cool but would it be a hassle finding the right one, and then I'd need a remap I guess? Going down the RS2 road would be great of course but I'm trying to buy a new house just now, and the longer I leave that the harder the Bank of England will make it methinks!

[Dr H]

About a week in total from pick up to delivery.

[irvind]

Ok ta. Turns out the turbo's absolutely fine, so they're going to strip the engine next to find out where this oil's coming from. They've quoted it as being a five-hour job to strip and diagnose.

[Dr H]

This sounds similar to a problem I had. When the car was hot and the ambient temperature was high (say high 20s) and the car was staionary in traffic etc. smoke would start to come out of the exhaust.

This was really bad smoke - like the red ****** arrows! Once the car got moving again the smoke would eventually go. Tried all sorts but no-one ever worked out what the problem was - best suggestion was dodgy CATs.

I'm waiting to see if it happens again this summer but so far so good

[irvind]

Just to bring this up to date, the engine was stripped and was having the breather valves cleared (and lots more that I've forgotten), supposed to be ready week before last but when they were rebuilding they f*cked the head gasket. This pissed me off a lot since I had to fly down South last week which in turn meant I couldn't stop in on the way home at Silverstone.. (Seriously pissed with that..)

Anyway, went to collect the car today only to find it still on the ramp, and he said they'd found something wrong with the turbo after all! Imagine my surprise! Asked them how much that had cost and he said £295. That can't be right surely? Isn't that a price for reconditioning more-like?

Was too fuming to stay and ask questions, but will hopefully find out more tomorrow.

This car's becoming too expensive...

[audiman]

Good garage

[irvind]

I know, the Bosch guy in there is great though, he took 40 minutes to diagnose a fault that eluded 2 different stealers over 6 months...

But yes, they suck apart from him.

[irvind]

Well after 4 and a half weeks I finally got the car back today, and am now £1262 lighter.Apparently the oil was something to do with the valve seals and the turbo seals (means nothing to somebody like me..)

So, headgasket set (which was their fault first time they stuck it all back together!!), timing belt, camshaft pulley, 2 vacuum pipes, oil/filter, antifreeze (had a water leak too), plugs, and re-conned turbo.

They say there might be a little more smoking for a week or two when it's cold till the residual oil in the exhaust system is expelled, but even today the car seemed clean all day and I did about 80 miles in it. Here's hoping...

Although within 20 minutes of collecting it I was back on the hard shoulder awaiting the breakdown truck.. Whoosh, sudden loss of power.. Turns out it was the hose to the intercooler had come off. At least I got an apology!

Hope this helps anyone else with a smoking car!