Hi,

I'm new to this forum. I own a 1996 850 Turbo. Today when I started it, I noticed a plume of smoke in the rear view mirror. It quit after a minute, but I decided to rev the motor to see if it would happen again, and it did. This is the first time that this has happened with this Volvo, and it wasn't smoking yesterday. It has around 125,000 miles on the odometer, and it has been serviced religiously. I have only used Mobil 1 at every oil change, and I use nothing but Volvo filters. The last oil change was about 500 miles ago.

Before this car, I had a 1990 740 Turbo. It started smoking, and the dealer replaced the turbo for $1200.00. I'm hoping that this is not the case with my 850. Could anything else cause this problem?

Thanks,
Tom

 

Could be but there are other things that would cause it.

what color is the smoke?
and you say there is smoke upon start up??

go open your hood, and remove your dip stick, let me know if smoke is coming out of that... or even take a balloon and see if (air) is coming out of it.

 

if its just smoke when you start it.. and assuming blueish smoke... its probably some oil getting by the valve seals...

 

i personally dont think its your valves or turbo, those generally dont just start leaking overnight... i would say its most likely related to your PCV system, did you add any oil recently?

 

Hi, Guys,

Thanks for the ideas and suggestions.

The smoke is blueish, so it is oil and not antifreeze. Plus the engine oil is clear and not milky. I pulled the dip stick and started it, and no smoke came from there, and, strange as it sounds, only a little smoke came from the tail pipe this time -- not like the cloud that came out yesterday. (I noticed it in the rear view mirror yesterday. Today I had to look at the tail pipe.) I also could not feel any pressure at the dip stick tube with the engine running.

I changed the oil about 500 miles ago. I usually change it every 3000 miles with Mobil !, and it doesn't use any oil between changes. 125,000 miles on a Volvo engine is like the break-in period for most cars.

 

True on the break in around 100k+ miles.

im running on 260k though. :P

ive got a nice smoke problem going on with mine, and it is my pcv, I just havent had the time to replace it lately.

 

I thought about cleaning the pcv system, but it looks like a major undertaking. What ever happened to the simple pcv valve in the valve cover that took 5 minutes to change?