Blue Smoke on Startup

[hopelessfish]

My car has been blowing a cloud of blue smoke on startup recently. It does smoke a tiny little bit when driving under boost as well, hardly noticeable unless your looking for it. It has also started using a bit of oil too. Before I start pulling things apart, am I right in thinking the turbo might be on its way out and oil is pooling in the intercooler or charge pipes and blowing through on startup? Anyone had this happen?

 

[Supermoto]

Id check the turbo for sure. Its easy enough to access and the most likely culprit from what I've seen around here.

 

[hopelessfish]

I pulled the intake, elbow and charge pipe off as well as the cold side intercooler pipe, everything nice and clean apart from a bit of dust in the intake hose. Changed it back to stock intake. Guessing it's either on the exhaust side or it's something worse, tomorrow I'll pull the plugs to see if they are fouled up.

 

[Finglonga]

Blue smoke at startup used to be stem seals failing as oil from the head pooled in the cylinders after runing down the valve stems after the engine has stood.

 

[hopelessfish]

Jeez I hope it's not that.

 

[hopelessfish]

Quick update... I bought a leakdown tester and got going with that - cylinder 1 read OK, slight hissing from the oil filler cap. Went to take the tester tube out of the spark plug hole and it would not come out. The rubber tube just spun around in the press-on fitting
So I had to cut the tube and ram a slotted screwdriver down there and twist the adaptor out... at least I didn't have to remove the head to get it out.
Anyway I managed to install new ikh24 plugs and RS3 coils, which will come out again once I get a replacement tube for this leakdown tester.

 

[ChrisMk77]

Quick update... I bought a leakdown tester and got going with that - cylinder 1 read OK, slight hissing from the oil filler cap. Went to take the tester tube out of the spark plug hole and it would not come out. The rubber tube just spun around in the press-on fitting
So I had to cut the tube and ram a slotted screwdriver down there and twist the adaptor out... at least I didn't have to remove the head to get it out.
Anyway I managed to install new ikh24 plugs and RS3 coils, which will come out again once I get a replacement tube for this leakdown tester.View attachment 179316

How did the plugs look? If they are clean I would remove the DP to see if it pushes oil out the bearing housing seals into the turbine housing.

 

[nype]

Interested to see what you discover. Just curious...why swap in new parts if you’re in the middle of troubleshooting an issue?

 

[hopelessfish]

How did the plugs look? If they are clean I would remove the DP to see if it pushes oil out the bearing housing seals into the turbine housing.

The plugs looked OK (I think). I'll try the DP next

 

[hopelessfish]

Interested to see what you discover. Just curious...why swap in new parts if you’re in the middle of troubleshooting an issue?

I was right on due for new plugs anyway (95000km) and thought I might as well replace the coils as well because I found some on sale

 

[OEMPL+S]

I was right on due for new plugs anyway (95000km) and thought I might as well replace the coils as well because I found some on sale

Two years later I know .... But did you ever figure this out?

My car has started up it's smoking on cold start again. And sorta worse then ever.

I think it could be PCV related but I do have the original IS38 on my car and maybe it's leaking a bit.
PCV is new but the A5 version.

Any ideas what the smoking on cold start is anybody?

Cheers

 

[Michael gti07]

Did you ever inspect the DP?
What has been closely inspected?

 

[Visceral]

I'm having the same issue. Small cloud of blue smoke on cold start only. After a second its gone. From what I have learnt while scanning the internet is this could be from valve stem seals. They are getting worn out and so lit a little of oil through that burns on startup. Once the car gets a little warmer the seals loosen up and do their job. Dunno but I a monitoring... For fun I bought some Lucas Oil Leak preventative stuff. Will see if its magic juice or not.

 

[1ashchuckton]

Don't pour that snake oil in your car. It could be valves seals. On cold start you have oil that has leaked past the seals into the combustion chamber. When you start that oil in there burns. Once it is burned no more smoke. If you are using a lot of oil fix them, if not I'd live with it. Just my .02 here...

 

[Visceral]

Thanks, yeah I don't know about the magic Lucas stuff... probably won't use it. Appreciate hearing another confirmation of what the issue is though, as good as the internet can be you read a lot of crazy stuff and its hard to decipher sometimes.