Last night, on our way home, our 2000 V70 XC which we've had for 3 months (155K when we bought it, 158K now) when I started having trouble keeping up with traffic, and the car started driving rough. There was a shimmy to it, more from it running rough. I also noticed that there was a lot of smoke out behind the car. Took the first exit & parked it.

Had a code reader & there was no code thrown, all temp levels were okay. Fluid levels (brake, power steering, cooling) Ok. Oil was a little less than full, but we are due for an oil change this week. Oil was the color of honey.

Underneath the car, there was oil on the crossmember just behind the engine that was blowing back & getting on the exhaust. That's where the bulk of the smoke was coming from.

Had it towed today & got a call from the place I had it towed saying that they thought that the turbo had gone out on it. That was beyond the level of repair they did, and suggested a couple import places in the area.

Is what I'm having a sign of the turbo going/gone out, or can it be something else? What are the symptoms/signs of it? Is it safe to drive (right now it is parked), even short distances?

Also, pre-purchase (Oct 2011), I had an inspection done. Is it typical for the Turbo to go out with little or no warning, or would it have given some warning signs or something that should have jumped out during an inspection?

Any thoughts & opinions appreciated. This is my first Volvo.

 

Turbo's usually don't just blow I don't think. I've never had a problem with a turbo so I really don't know. Not having a code makes it harder to deal with. Someone should come on and help you out a little. These cars throw codes pretty easy so a code should have come.

About the only issue that I know of that doesn't toss a code is fuel pressure. Like when the pump goes out or the relay starts acting up. It's usually an intermittent issue so you can usually drive it around until it acts up again. When the fuel pump gets real bad it will starve the injectors of fuel and may toss a code then.

 

It sounds like maybe the seals have failed on the turbo which is causing it to leak oil. You probably need to put it on a rack and run the engine to observe where the oil is leaking from. The turbo is on the drivers side of the back of the engine and the exhaust is more towards the middle. Must be leaking quite a bit to land on the exhaust pipe. There is a seal on the small pipe that goes to the turbo to feed it oil that tends to fail. You should be able to see it when the car is up on the rack and you look from the ground up at the turbo. BTW when the turbo is blown you tend to have no power and a bit of white smoke out of the exhaust (yes?).

 

Thanks for the info.

I took it to a different local repair shop with an excellent reputation. They also specialize in Volvos, and the owner owns the exact same model I do. Right now, I'm waiting on a phone call to confirm what they had initially identified.

In talking to one of the mechanics this morning (who did an initial assessment), he also thought as you do about the turbo return tube & seal having failed.

Regarding your thought on the turbo, I get a little bit of the white smoke, but that's only after I have cranked it in the mornings (we've had frost every day, so it could be that). Once it is cranked, it is okay. The other part of a blown turbo (no power) - I'm not noticing that, as I've pulled out into traffic with no issues. It could be related to one of the items they identified in a once-over last week. The smoke I got last week was where I had oil blowing back onto the cat & exhaust, where it was just billowing out the back and from the sides. There was absolutely NO fouling though in the vicinity of the tailpipe.

The initial check last week identified several items with an issue.

1. The loss of power I got may have been related to the Angle drive going in it, which also could have gotten some of its contents near the exhaust that burned off. Instead of fixing it, their suggestion was to take out the drive shaft & turning it into a FWD vehicle.
2. The cam seals were leaking, pretty bad too.
3. Turbo return tube was leaking or the seal had failed in it.
4. Oil may have been coming from other sources also, but without stopping it from the top, they couldn't confirm it.
5. There were a couple other issues too (Lower transmission torque mount was broken, also had oil on it, the front CV joint).

The owner of the garage's suggestion (last week) was to address it in chunks. The phone call I'm waiting on is to confirm that ONLY #1,#2 & #3 above are all that was going on & there wasn't an additional $2,000 surprise waiting for me.

I'm sick about the pre-purchase inspection, as in hindsight it had absolutely no value. In fact, even though they said I had a small oil leak in or near the PCV box, when I spoke to them, they downplayed it saying that it was very minor and it would be something I would not have to address until 10-15K down the road, when I would consider having the timing belt changed. They only said that I should just keep an eye on it, but downplayed it. Don't know if they were in collusion with the lot, or if they were trying to generate business with me down the road, or if they didn't look at it very well, or if they knew their Volvo from their elbow.

 

Sorry to hear that your inspector didn't do a good job. Sometimes you can call them and let them know what is going on it will do 2 things:

1. Let them know you are not happy with the sorry inspection they did. May cause them to do a better job.

2. They may pay you back for your inspection.

 

On #1, I have drafted a review on Yelp (a rating & review site - something I use on my cell phone) saying that I made a several thousand dollar decision based on what amounted to a very cursory inspection. Whether it was thru ignorance, experience/effort (or lack thereof), or deliberately is immaterial. They sugar-coated the results which are now costing me money.

On #2 above, I'm sure the response would be that I could wish in one hand & c*&p in the other to see which one gets filled first.

Perhaps they didn't manage my expectations of their work. I wasn't expecting a detailed forensic exam. I expected a few minutes of a test drive in city & highway speeds (for noises) followed by getting underneath it (and under the hood) checking for leaks, etc. and generally inspecting belts, hoses and the like. About an hour or so at most.

Had a couple things done yesterday.

They removed the drive shaft to the rear wheels, and BOY does it make a difference in the ride. Felt a lot looser, steering was more responsive, and just in general a better ride. Not nearly as "stiff" to drive. When they did this, they found that the Angle drive box was completely empty (which they refilled). They said that these (empty angle drives) get so hot they actually catch fire & burn up the car. They also put a florescent dye in the oil & wanted us to drive it for a couple days to see where the leaks were.

When I got home yesterday, there's a spot underneath the car, about 10-12" away from the back of the right front tire. It's about a foot across, felt like really thin oil (like 3-in-1), and had a kind of oily metallic smell (think of how metal smells when it's being welded).

I get in this morning & see the coolant light come on, check it and see that it comes just to the bottom of the reservoir, top it off (have added the contents of the reservoir 1 other time) and take it in. They take a look underneath it, and the angle drive gear is still full. Shine the light looking for the dye, and it's not leaking. They poke around some, and finally see what is going on.

What's happened is that the coolant reservoir has a calcified spot on the seam of the bottom of it that when it gets under pressure, it weeps coolant out of it until the reservoir empties. Where it's weeping to is all over that side of the engine. And, because it thins it out so, it goes everywhere. Weird, huh?

There weren't any dye spots showing up on it; we probably hadn't driven it 25 miles. Getting it back this afternoon & will use it over the weekend & taking it to them Monday.

 

What I'm sick about is I have the same car with 109k miles and mine still runs nice but makes me think about issues in the future. I already had the angle drive replaced with one from a salvage car due to problem with the gears (low oil?). My car also leaked anti-freeze at the reservoir bottom and I replaced it along with the rubber hose that connects to the back of the engine. For some reason over time the rubber connection at the bottom of the reservoir breaks down along with the plastic fitting on the reservoir. It's probably best to run it as FWD car given the other issues you will run into like chewing up tires every 24k miles. It's just not a cheap car to run when it gets old.

 

Took the car in the previous week, and had the Drive shaft removed that powered the rear wheels. They also changed the oil and put some dye into it to check to see where things were leaking. That afternoon, I got home & saw a spot in the driveway about a foot across.

Took it back & found that the coolant reservoir had a crack in it & that it would weep when it was both full and under pressure. That was wicking down the tube and onto the back of the engine. They'd loosened up a bunch of the gunk on the back of the engine & what was in the driveway was the remnants of that and a little coolant. Changed out the reservoir & that issue stopped.

Drove the car about 250 miles & took it back earlier this week to be checked out.

Got a really good report back on it. Oil leaks at the cam seals & at the turbo return tube were minor, and the garage manager said that he would not do anything with them until they got a LOT worse than they are now. That they are indeed relatively minor. All the oil (and what was blowing onto the exhaust) was where the angle drive finally bit the dust. He said that it likely heated up to the point where the grease in it was liquefied and then was slung all over creation in the general area of where I also may have already had a minor oil leak. I think I've even seen someone's pictures they made of it where the angle drive basically did the same thing & slung the grease all over the engine.

Taking out the drive shaft made it drive a lot better, and removed a noise that I had been trying to figure out where it was coming from (it sounded like it was in a different place all the time), and could not reproduce (until the angle drive finally croaked & it then did it all the time) which happened on our way home the other week.

The garage owner said he'd just keep it as a FWD vehicle until we decide to get rid of it. And also, that treating the oil leaks in it could wait until we would be doing other things (like a timing belt) at the same time, or in the case of the turbo return tube only if it started causing problems. However, neither was an issue that required urgent attention.

The car though, had made that noise (and immediately stopped) when we bought it. And, the pre-purchase inspection - which obviously didn't include even a brief test drive - should have pointed out something on the angle drive, which (according to what I've been able to learn) doesn't just disintegrate without giving you some warning signs several thousand miles ahead of time.