2003 Volvo 2.4 Turbo 4 valve/cyl engine 75K miles well cared for

The car started pouring bluish smoke out the tailpipe at idle. Gets worse as you accelerate. No loss of power or noise from the turbo. Oil level is not overfilled. What might cause oil to enter the intake system? What is an Oil Trap? Any help appreciated.

 

Bluish = probable oil related. If it were coolant/head gasket, it would be whitish, like a new Pope had just been elected. Pull your plugs and take a look at them, too. While if you have bad rings or scored cylinder wall replacement will only cure symptom for a while, you can narrow down your areas of concern. Rings? Cylinder wall scored? Valve guides? All possible sources of oil in combustion chamber. Oil trap? Some get clogged (or the feeder pipe does) and screws up pressure inside crankcase. Think PCV valve. Common symptom is hissing at dipstick. Is your oil still black, or is it "milkshake" brown which is symptom of coolant mix in it?

A less likely cause, in my opinion which is free to you and therefore has no monetary value, is fuel injection trouble where the mixture is off. But that should trip a code and you didn't mention that. Fuel injection trouble can be caused by several things including the injectors themselves, O2 sensor trouble, computer trouble from other sensors or even internal to the damn box itself.

Check oil consumption carefully, too.

All this speculation being said, its not likely to cure itself. Sounds like a problem for those with technical knowledge of older Volvo turbo engines to diagnose and fix.

 

Hey Stu, It's a cheap fix. It's the breather box under the intake. The part is $56 and about a 3 hour job. The intake has to come off and you have to use a wire to clear the drain back into the crankcase. Mine did the same thing. It's a common problem.