Help! Piston Rings?

[NPFX]

Hi guys I wonder if you could lend any advice to my problem which has been the bane of my life for the last couple of months.

I have quite a lot of blue smoke from the exhaust when I start up from cold and this remains for about the first 5 minutes of driving, especially when sat in traffic. I'm also using quite a lot of oil and my fuel consumption has also gone through the roof (260 miles on a full tank). The car is a 51 plate and has done 75,000 miles.

The engine management light came on so I took it to a specialist in Newport who found three fault codes including the diverter valves and the lambda sensor. However when they dug deeper they said all these things seemed fine and simply reset the computer. They couldn't shed much light on the smoke but said it could potentially be the piston rings.

It seems to be driving ok but now the smoke has got worse than ever. I am wondering whether to take it to Audi and pay for a proper diagnosis and quote to fix but I have a feeling if it's the piston rings this is going to be big money. Does anyone have any idea about the sort of cost that might be involved, and whether it might be wiser to get shot of it altogether on a part ex? I love the car so much I would be gutted to get rid of it and would have to get another one, but I am loathe to pay out thousands only for something else to come up in the near future.

Any suggestions?
Many thanks

 

[TNE]

I'm no expert on the VAG 20v engine but it may be a simple valve/stem seal problem.

Another suggestion would of been the turbo, but you normally get white or grey smoke with a very strong smell of burning oil.

Did the Newport specialist do a compression test?

A good suggestion would be to get a compression test done. Post the readings on here and i'm sure someone on here will be able to help.

 

[johnmv55]

Should'nt really be rings at 75K? more likely to be the Turbo I would have thought, when the turbo went on my T5 I found sitting in traffic at idle the worst, It would start with just a wiff now and then, then progress to smoke drifting down the side of the car, followed by the full 007 effect when I drove off, taking a mile or so to clear, a new turbo sorted it.

 

[Rev-head]

75k is quite strange for this problem

Full Service history?
let the car and sit and tick over for 15-20 minutes then rev the engine if it spews out blue smoke Turbo seals

have you overheated the engine ?

when you start the engine first thing does it blow blue smoke?......valve stem seals

What is the power output like?

 

[Broken Byzan]

I am inclined to think turbo problem, the increased fuel consumption is prob due to you needing to give it some to get anywhere with gusto

 

[excursion]

Compression test first, or even better a leak down test.