Okay...

I test drove a 96 850R last night. Otherwise seemed to be working pretty good (except for some clunks from the passenger front) but I was pretty stunned by the amount of blue smoke came from the engine bay.

It was actually quite embarrassing to stop at traffic lights with the smoke billowing out. Eventually it even reached the cabin from underneath the dash. Damn!!!

I didn't have the time to dig further into it as it was getting dark already, but I'm assuming it is most likely the infamous turbo oil return line leak, right? How difficult is that to fix? I remember reading about that somewhere here, but didn't find anything now...

The car has 14xK miles and the body seems to be in good shape. The only other thing on top of the smoke and clunks was that the AC did not work. I'm not that much concerned about the AC and the clunks, but the smoking is my main concern.

Asking price is 2995, but I'd definitely not pay that as is. And probably not even if fixed. Just wanted to get some ideas about the fix for the smoking before making an offer...

Thanks, guys!

 

Smoke is not a good thing. I would make sure that it is definitely the oil return line before you buy the car. It could be something worse like a blow turbo. If it ends up being the turbo oil return line, that is an easy fix.

The clunking is probably a worn out spring seat or bad control arm. Not the hardest thing to fix but not for a first time DIYer.

Lastly, an 850R in this shape is not worth 3K, more like 2K.

 

Yup. Smoke is definitely never a good thing. Especially since there was so much of it.

I did hear/feel the the turbo working, just like in my 95, the power was there and even the boost gauge (FWIW) did register boost when accelerating. You could also hear the BOV releasing pressure.

How do you diagnose a blown turbo? Not sure as the one in my 95 seems to be working just fine.

I'm no novice in the DIY arena, so working on suspension is not really a biggie.

Around 2K is actually what I was thinking offering as is. Maybe a few hundred more if fixed. But I also have a 95 GLT I'm looking at and that is also a good option. I can probably get that well below 2K, so we'll see...