Hi All,
My first post on these forums! I have a 2.5 V6 TDI Passat which has developed a bit of an oil leak. Having searched the forum it seems like a fairly common one.
I've just read the rather excellent "Replacing crankcase breather" thread and plan to attempt this soon.
The actual leak is visible "between the V" - If I look just in front of the oil filter there is a big black pool of oil. There is also a load of oil on and around the injector pipes where they leave the fuel pump. Underneath, there is a bit of an oil slick, its hard to pin point but its in the middle of the car, inline with the anti roll bar.
The other problem is the amount of soot in the engine bay. There's loads of it! It's dry soot and wipes off easily but something tells me it's not normal. If I wipe it off then its back within a few thousand miles.
Pictures speak a thousand words, so here's some to look at:
Large amount of soot behind the turbo (on the firewall):
Hard to make out, but there is a pool of oil in front of the oil filter:
Another shot showing the soot problem:
Just to the right of the EGR you can see soot splattered on the right hand rocker cover, and lots of soot around the engine cover mount:
That's dirty, picture of the firewall:
Lots of black between the V, and lots of soot from the EGR (to the right):
Another shot of the EGR dirt:
(ignore oil on the turbo shield, I spilt some during the oil change)
So there we have it, a very dirty oily engine. I should mention the car has done 180k so some muck is to be expected. I have previously taken the inlet manifold off and cleaned it out. I noticed during the last oil change that the oil filter housing was half full with oil, so I had to submerge the oil filter in oil during fitting. I'm not sure if this is normal, is there some kind of anti drain valve?
The only other problems I've noticed are it uses some coolant (needs topping up every few thousand) and it makes quite a lot of blue smoke if you rev it when its not warmed up. Also I took it on a motorway run recently and the low oil warning light came on. I checked the level and it seemed fine...
Finally, the previous owner said something had been modified (possibly by VW) to prevent the intake manifold from sooting up. I'm not sure what this could be but I was thinking perhaps the soot is being dumped into the engine bay rather than being re-circulated.
Can anyone suggest what I can check to reduce the soot situation and pinpoint the oil leak?
Many thanks,
Henry
My first post on these forums! I have a 2.5 V6 TDI Passat which has developed a bit of an oil leak. Having searched the forum it seems like a fairly common one.
I've just read the rather excellent "Replacing crankcase breather" thread and plan to attempt this soon.
The actual leak is visible "between the V" - If I look just in front of the oil filter there is a big black pool of oil. There is also a load of oil on and around the injector pipes where they leave the fuel pump. Underneath, there is a bit of an oil slick, its hard to pin point but its in the middle of the car, inline with the anti roll bar.
The other problem is the amount of soot in the engine bay. There's loads of it! It's dry soot and wipes off easily but something tells me it's not normal. If I wipe it off then its back within a few thousand miles.
Pictures speak a thousand words, so here's some to look at:
Large amount of soot behind the turbo (on the firewall):
Hard to make out, but there is a pool of oil in front of the oil filter:
Another shot showing the soot problem:
Just to the right of the EGR you can see soot splattered on the right hand rocker cover, and lots of soot around the engine cover mount:
That's dirty, picture of the firewall:
Lots of black between the V, and lots of soot from the EGR (to the right):
Another shot of the EGR dirt:
(ignore oil on the turbo shield, I spilt some during the oil change)
So there we have it, a very dirty oily engine. I should mention the car has done 180k so some muck is to be expected. I have previously taken the inlet manifold off and cleaned it out. I noticed during the last oil change that the oil filter housing was half full with oil, so I had to submerge the oil filter in oil during fitting. I'm not sure if this is normal, is there some kind of anti drain valve?
The only other problems I've noticed are it uses some coolant (needs topping up every few thousand) and it makes quite a lot of blue smoke if you rev it when its not warmed up. Also I took it on a motorway run recently and the low oil warning light came on. I checked the level and it seemed fine...
Finally, the previous owner said something had been modified (possibly by VW) to prevent the intake manifold from sooting up. I'm not sure what this could be but I was thinking perhaps the soot is being dumped into the engine bay rather than being re-circulated.
Can anyone suggest what I can check to reduce the soot situation and pinpoint the oil leak?
Many thanks,
Henry
