Head gasket leak? 99 S70 T5

viriiguy · Post by **viriiguy** » 13 Jun 2009, 19:12

For a while now, I have had condensation and white "smoke" coming form my tail pipe. It had been suggested in the past to be me leaking coolant, but I have never noticed a drop in the level, nor have I had to add any. So I never thought that could be it.

But today, I decided to look a little deeper. The exhaust has a sweet smell. I believe the smoke to be steam, hence all the water in my tailpipe. So I pulled all the plugs and looked in the cylinders. 1,2,4 and 5 all have carbon on top of the pistons. 3 is spotless. To me that says I am leaking coolant into cylinder 3 and steam cleaning it.

Would that be correct?
I have seen a couple estimates on here of this being a $2000 repair?? IPDUSA sells the gasket kit for $107. Surely it is not THAT difficult of a job? Is it really that much harder than say a 3.8l GM V6?

I have as of yet been unable to find a guide for changing the head gasket on this car. Is there one here? I highly doubt my head is warped as the car has never once over heated. Not even close. The temp is always at 3 o'clock.

Thanks,
Randy

viriiguy · Post by **viriiguy** » 14 Jun 2009, 08:34

I spoke with a mechanic friend in Spain who knows how hard I am on a car..

He says if it was my head gasket, there is no way it would have held up for 8 months, as this has and continues to do so. He seems to think I am looking at a leak in my intake manifold gasket. Seem logical to you guys?

Post by **vegasjetskier** » 14 Jun 2009, 09:33

Is your oil level dropping?

viriiguy · Post by **viriiguy** » 14 Jun 2009, 09:38

None of my fluid levels are dropping by a discernible amount.

Post by **vegasjetskier** » 14 Jun 2009, 09:55

viriiguy wrote:None of my fluid levels are dropping by a discernible amount.

Maybe the "smoke" is just condensing water vapor from the normal combustion process. If you're not losing any fluid or experiencing any other symptoms, why not just leave it alone?

viriiguy · Post by **viriiguy** » 14 Jun 2009, 10:29

I do have some random symptoms, plus the car is about to go on a 2800 mile trip. All the sypmtoms that I have, related or not are...

Excessive Steam from the exhaust when sitting idle. Fair amount of water in exhaust. One cylinder is clean the other 4 are dirty. Turbo seems to cut out under heavy acceleration from a dead stop. Then kicks back in. The engine just runs rough. Not so rough to throw a code, but not as smooth as I feel a volvo should.

*edit*----
Another one I deal with is every morning, my ritual is start the car, turn the wheel all the way to the left, put in reverse and let off the brake. This always makes the car want to die. This is the ONLY time it ever wants to die, but every morning. If I let it run for a few minutes, it won't do this.

I did find yesterday that I need to replace my idler pulley as well. Also, I don't tend to just ignore problems on my cars. They never get better, only worse and more expensive. Not to mention that I drive this car daily for an avg of 500-800 miles a week.

mp20748 · Post by **mp20748** » 06 Jul 2009, 06:44

viriiguy wrote:For a while now, I have had condensation and white "smoke" coming form my tail pipe. It had been suggested in the past to be me leaking coolant, but I have never noticed a drop in the level, nor have I had to add any. So I never thought that could be it.

But today, I decided to look a little deeper. The exhaust has a sweet smell. I believe the smoke to be steam, hence all the water in my tailpipe.
Randy

I have this exact problem on my S70 /T5.

I've search all over for the answer and found it this morning.

If I start the engine and remove the radiator overflow cap with engine hot, the smoke will not come out of the exhaust. With it on, it comes out.

I found out my Turbo is water/coolant cooled. And since there's no oil in the anti-freeze, or no anti-freeze in the oil, that ruled out the heads and gasket. And the engine had not overheated.

So my research lead me to needing to replace the Turbo. When it goes bad, you will see white smoke that smells like anti-freeze coming out the exhaust.

At this point I have not replaced the Turbo, but without doubt, I know that's where my problem is...

mike