Smokey 1.6 Gti

[Sanchez 0]

Hi,

 

In just the last 2 days my car has suddenly become very smokey (blue smoke) at both idle and under revs. I took it to a local indie today who pressure tested the head and did a head gasket test and both came back fine. He seemed to think it was an acceptable level of smoke but previously the engine hasn't smoked at all, so it's not. There's a strong smell of burning oil and a good amount of smoke.

 

I've noticed that it only starts to smoke after about 4 or 5 minutes of running and doesn't do it when I start the car (ruling out valve stem seals?). Once it's started to smoke it also seems to labour on tick over, going from maybe 700 to 900 rpm each second or so. I couldn't say that this is definitely related though.

 

The car is using oil, but it's always used a little. I'd say it's using about half a litre a month. It doesn't seem to be using any coolant and there's no mixture of oil/water in the filler cap.

 

Can anyone make any suggestions as to what the problem could be? It's going to a Peugeot Specialist in Chesterfield later this week to see if they can diagnose the issue. I'd prefer not to have expensive work like the stem seals done if it's not necessary.

 

Any help is really appreciated.

[Veero 1]

If compression is ok on all cylinders then to my amateur brain that suggests the piston rings are ok. Mine did a similar thing and had good compression and it turned out to be worn valve stem seals. Not a massively difficult job, it was the first major car surgery I did.

 

Mine became a bit smokey on general use with a strong smell of burning oil and then idling at the lights for example it would belch out a great cloud as I pulled away.

 

Maybe someone else will confirm.

[Sanchez 0]

Thanks for your reply Veero.

 

This does sound similar to my problem, it does kick out quite a bit at the lights. In all honesty I've not noticed it whilst driving. This is partly because as soon as I did notice I drove straight home. When just revving to about 3-4k in neutral it smokes the same though.

 

I'd just like to avoid doing work like the valve stems, especially as it's not something I could attempt to do myself, partly because I don't have the skills or tools but also because I travel 60 miles a day to work and back and can't be without my car for long periods (if I was to tackle it myself). I'd imagine it's a reasonably expensive job to do at a garage also?

[Veero 1]

No idea what a garage would charge, chances are they'd do a head off and so forth so probably would be a few hundred maybe. I managed mine without taking the head offsince the HG showed no signs of iminent failure. It involved a cambelt and pump change but was able to do it on my own. Send me a PM with your email address in and I'll send you the guide I wrote. If you're any good with spanner it would probably only take a few hours.

 

Cheers

Veero

[Sanchez 0]

Thanks Veero,

 

I've sent you a PM with my address. My girlfriend's brother is handy with the spanners and I'm sure if I slipped him some beer tokens he'd be happy to do it. I'll see what he says

 

Does anyone else have any suggestions of what it might be?

[pablo 0]

recently done the stem seals myself mate using veeros guide (cheers!) its a bit of a pain but doable on a very small budget. £13 for seals, £15 for a tool. you could be ghetto and just mark the cambelt and cam pulley to save retiming it but its not that much extra work to time it properly.

 

didnt fix my problem tho

[Sanchez 0]

Veero (or anyone else for that matter who has had to replace the stem seals), would yours smoke on startup too, as mine doesn't.

[GLPoomobile 958]

I had VERY knackered stem seals on my last 1.6.

 

When I bought it, the owner was worried that it may be the HG on the way out. I was more concerned about piston rings though. Back then it was only smoking on the odd occasion. Looking through the service history and paperwork, it had a bill from a dealer stating that the piston rings were causing the problem - it had had this problem since 1997 (it was 2007 when I bought it IIRC) and had done about 30000-40000 miles since

 

Within a very short space of time the problem became much worse. When asking for advice on here, most people said it sounded like rings as it didn't fit the pattern for failed stem seal. But I went ahead and replaced them (Veero sent me his guide, but I ended up taking the head off so I could give it a clean up and replace the gasket too). Put it all back together and it was fine. Before replacing them it had got to the stage where it was smoking pretty much constantly, from start up, when idling, when booting it, on the over run. I seem to remember it went from being a sporadic problem to a constant problem immediately, and can even vaguely recall the moment it happened. I reckon it must have spat out a massive chunk of crusty old dried stem seal right then

[Galifrey 1]

Veero (or anyone else for that matter who has had to replace the stem seals), would yours smoke on startup too, as mine doesn't.

 

There is a kind of mini test you can do to see if your valve stem seals are the culprit. It's not 100% but can give an indication. Try some oil that is thicker at high temps to see if it reduces the problem, or at least delays it onset. (try 5w-50)

 

Worn rings will generally smoke fairly consistently, valve stem seals/valve guides will smoke more after idling a few moments, and also get worse as the engine heats up.

 

This is by no means a certain way of making the diagnosis, but may help indicate where you need to pay attention.

[DamirGTI 342]

Can you make us an good detail picture of all 4 spark plugs ?

 

... could be worn valve guides

 

Damir

[Sanchez 0]

valve stem seals/valve guides will smoke more after idling a few moments, and also get worse as the engine heats up.

This is exactly what's happening with mine. The warmer it gets the worse the smoke gets. I'll just have to bite the bullet I guess. Thanks for everyone's suggestions and help, I really appreciate it. Hopefully this thread will help some other people on here too if they experience the same problem. I did search before posting but couldn't find anything that matched my exact issue.

[GLPoomobile 958]

Yes it could be worn valve guides. But to my mind (and please feel free to disagree) I'd expect the stem seals to fail sooner than the valve guides. If they've not been done before in it's lifetime, they are going to be getting on for 20 years old. They are probably as dried up and crusty as Dot Cotten's lady garden . Plus the fact that it's started suddenly. Wouldn't worn piston rings or worn valve guides develope and worsen over time? I know the same can be said of the stem seals, but I've heard other people talk of seals breaking down suddenly as they dry up and then break apart.

 

I would maybe get a 2nd opinon on the compression test. Perhaps buy a tester and do it yourself (piss easy). If it was the piston rings, you can check by adding a drop of oil down the spark plug hole and restesting the cmpression. A failed ring will allow some pressure to leak past, so when you add the oil it forms a bit of a seal in the bore and you'll see higher copression on the next test. So if there is no change with the oil, rings should be fine, if the compression increases noticeably with the oil, you have a worn ring.

 

If the rings are OK, and the compression test is not showing a HG failure (which it sounds like it is not the case anyway), then I'd go for steam seals.

[Galifrey 1]

Yes it could be worn valve guides. But to my mind (and please feel free to disagree) I'd expect the stem seals to fail sooner than the valve guides. If they've not been done before in it's lifetime, they are going to be getting on for 20 years old. They are probably as dried up and crusty as Dot Cotten's lady garden . Plus the fact that it's started suddenly. Wouldn't worn piston rings or worn valve guides develope and worsen over time? I know the same can be said of the stem seals, but I've heard other people talk of seals breaking down suddenly as they dry up and then break apart.

 

I would maybe get a 2nd opinon on the compression test. Perhaps buy a tester and do it yourself (piss easy). If it was the piston rings, you can check by adding a drop of oil down the spark plug hole and restesting the cmpression. A failed ring will allow some pressure to leak past, so when you add the oil it forms a bit of a seal in the bore and you'll see higher copression on the next test. So if there is no change with the oil, rings should be fine, if the compression increases noticeably with the oil, you have a worn ring.

 

If the rings are OK, and the compression test is not showing a HG failure (which it sounds like it is not the case anyway), then I'd go for steam seals.

 

Thanks for the vision of Dot Cottons lady garden! And yes, I agree, stem seals>valve guides, on older engines the symptoms are pretty much the same, for our cars, stem seals seems much more likely.

[DamirGTI 342]

Oil leak from the top area of the engine (head -> steam seals/valve guides) vs oil leak from the bottom (piston rings) can be roughly diagnosed by the spark plug coloration and presence of deposits … also cylinder with worn out piston rings can be diagnosed with a bore scope (or an plain flashlight) trough the spark plug hole – if theres a problem with oil control the edges of the piston crown will have “washed off appearance” , if its fine you'll expect to see even brownish/black coating on the piston crowns without washed off crown edges ..

 

If the engine really has good compression (but bear in mind that the compression results might appear sound because the oil is already present inside the cylinders , which helps sealing up the rings at cranking hence good compression results .. so id check the insides with the bore scope as described above to be 100% sure ..) then the problem is in the upper part of the engine i.e. valve steam seals or valve guides , as the oil is sucked down past the worn steam seals/valve guides inside the engine in the presence of high vacuum (stop and go driving , low rmp/cruising) and as an result the engine will usually use a lot of oil but from my experience despite high oil consumption it wont smoke so badly in the early stage of the problem ..

 

Take a look if theres any oil accumulation inside the throttle body and main TB to AFM inlet air pipe ..

 

Damir

Edited October 13, 2009 by DamirGTI