mystery oil leak...

[philipw]

Today is monday, I took my '98-s70 to a jiffy lube for an oil change on saturday before a long roadtrip. I had not gotten 40 miles from jiffy lube when I began to notice excessive smoking under the hood along with a potent smell. My first assumption was that it may just be burning oil that was spilled when they changed it, so I wiped some oil from the top of the engine and stopped at the next closest jiffy lube. There they told me that alot of oil had spilled down the back of my engine, probably from earlier (when my oil was changed) like I thought. So they cleaned what they found and I continued with no problems. In fact it wasn't until later that night, after my 9 hour round trip, when I was 7 miles from my home that I noticed the smell again, and by the time I got home it was smoking alot. This to me made it apparent that the problem was not spilled oil, but oil that was leaking from somewhere since it started up again. So today I took my car back to the jiffy lube where my oil was changed to ask them what they did wrong, what they told me, after 20 minutes of looking was that i've lost about 1/2qt since saturday morning and the leak is coming from my valve cover gasket. Its coming from the back corner of my engine closest to my drivers side. I have read some posts about similar problems already and what most people have to say seems to be incongruent with what they've told me the problem is, that is my mystery...not to mention I find it hard to trust them now and would love others' opinions on this issue,
thanks.

[sph30001]

I think you have bad cam seals one might have just poped out.

[rspi]

Phillip; First of all, do you know how to check your oil? When you suspect a leak, check the oil yourself to see how much you are loosing.

Second: Did you check the oil before you had the oil changed? It's a good idea to do so. That way you will know how much oil you have before it's changed. If it's 1 or 2 quarts low, or still full. Actually, if you are out of warranty, you should check your oil ever 1,000 miles or 30 days which ever comes first.

So, if you don't know how to do that, get a grip on how much oil your car uses so if something happens different, you'll know how much different things are. A 1/2 quart of oil in a 600 mile trip is really not that bad depending on what motor you have and how many miles you have, etc.

I'm with Shp30001, it sounds like you have blown a cam seal. That can happen at any time especially if you have NOT serviced your PCV system. You should also look at your receipt to see what oil weight they used. I blew a few cam seals on my daughters S70 GLT and it leaked out 2-1/2 quarts in 2 miles.

[philipw]

Yes I try to check my oil every few weeks, before the oil change it had not leaked at all. The level was right in the middle not too high or too low. I checked it several times along my trip and saw it slowly decreasing. And yeah, the trip was a few hundred miles and the guys at jiffy lube said I returned with right around 1/2qt less than what I left with. This was the first oil change I've gotten with this vehicle as well as my first long trip so maybe I do need a better idea of how much oil my car uses like you said. Like I said, I've read a few other posts about similar problems and the subject of cam seals has come up more than once. From what I've read, it seems they aren't too hard to replace?

[rspi]

If you are a NEW FWD Volvo owner there are a few things you need to learn today.

1. Make sure you have a good timing belt.
2. Make sure the PCV system is serviced or replaced.
3. Get your hands on a spare fuel pump relay.
4. If your car is NOT turbo, do your best to use 91+ octane.
5. Get yourself a code reader.
6. Service the transmission.

No oil leak is good. When our S70 had a cam seal leak, I thought I'd deal with it in the spring and a week later is was squarting out out like a water fall. Any leak can turn into a gusher, especially a cam seal leak.

Here is a link to help you get your car to a safe good tune, stage 0:
http://volvoforums.com/forum/volvo-850- ... ions-9266/

[tridents65]

Great link rspi. Just read through it. Good stuff to know.

[shiloh51933]

From what I've read and I believe hasn't been mentioned, it's kinda funny that he claims no oil leaks b4 oil change and now it leaks oil.

[Neill1022]

If you notice oil around the filler cap, check your seal in your oil cap. Mine was cracked and when I stepped on it, pressure pushed the oil through the crack and all over the engine, causing a scary amount of smoke. Lots of engine compartment smoke means the leak is high, start at the top.

[gilhuly]

Advice all is good except needing to run high octane gas in an N/A. I'm raising the BS flag on that one. An N/A will not suffer in ANY way from running 87 octane fuel.

[rspi]

As for the 91+ octane... I've alway wondered about that and recently seen a car TV show with some guy with a hot rod (old vett) explain that issue. The thing is that some cars with smaller motors design them to preform better by raising the compression ratio. If you use lower octaine gas in a car that runs compression over 9.0:1 it runs the risk of knocking. What the guy said was that a lot of car companies, mainly the ones that produce preformance cars, have high compression, some over 10.5:1.

What happens is the fuel injector sprays fuel in the chamber and the fuel is waiting for spark to create the explosion. Well, as the compression in the piston gets greater, lower octane gas has a lower flash point and may ignite before the spark is given. If this happens the chamber will get a premature ignition and cause the piston to receive the entergy before the spark gives it causing a knee jerk reaction that is called KNOCK (some men experience this with their lady friend, not good for that situation either). Now Volvo's have 2 knock sensors and do their best to avoid this situation/problem. The US Gov website advises people to knotch up the octane if they suspect or feel their motor is knocking, one level at a time. Volvos do a good job at preventing knock, however, if one of those knock sensors malfunction and your motor starts knocking, you can cause problems with your motor. I can't prove it, but I bet some people that are complaining about their car missing or running poorly have knock problem. The thing is that they would have to pump 91+ and run out the 87 to figure it out.

Now, I always thought that it was more important for a higher preformance motor to use 91+ octane, like the turbo since it put out more hp. Well, the fact of the matter is that the N/A motor is actually a higher compression motor, it has to be just to make it peppy with no turbo. If you look at the Volvo site, you will see that the specs of the motors are as follows when it comes to compression:

2.3 T3: Compression ratio 8.5:1
2.5 T: Compression ratio 9.0:1
2.5 NA: Compression ratio 10.5:1

https://www.customers.volvocars.com/own ... .htm#pg135

The 960 is even worse. It runs Compression ratio 10.7:1. I put some gas in the car one day and it would not drive over 45 mph until I ran down that gas.

Of all the cars, the T5 has the lowest compression. Because of that, there are a lot of guys that have installed NA cams in their T5 motors just to raise compression.

Your car, you can do what you like. I do run 91+ mainly because the owerns manual recommends it and I think I get better mileage with it. You may not experience the knock with low octane gas unless you put your foot in it, not sure if there is any immediate price to pay but you will end up with burnt valves and maybe even worse, bent valves. I've also read about people compalining about their timing being off. I wonder if they are knocking. I also see a lot of people complaining about their car not wanting to rev above 4k. Makes me wonder if they put some octane boost in the tank will it make a difference.