Major leak around mid-pipe with white smoke at exhaust. 2011 S80 3.2L

[Irvine91]

Hello all, just joined the forum. Short story, my dad has had his Volvo S80 2011 since he bought it in 2010. He's really driven this car hard and not been regular with maintenance. In fact he routinely tops off his oil with different brands and weight. I took it upon myself to flush the motor oil and replace with 0W-30 Liqui Moly, and used Liqui Moly MOS2 additive. I also flushed the coolant and replaced it with the required OEM coolant. Lastly, spark plugs were replaced and the intake manifold removed and ports cleaned of black grease and baked on soot. Car was put back together fine with one exception, the coolant recovery tank hose was very brittle from age and cracked when re-installed. A replacement is being overnighted from FCP Euro.

When I ran the car to check driveability I found the motor quieted down by a lot, and it drove so much better. However, a low coolant light came on followed by a very high pitched whine from the engine bay, at idle and below 3k rpm. Engine started to overheat with water vapor coming from the engine bay. Lastly, white smoke came from the tail pipe just after the maintenance throughout. I topped off the coolant again assuming the coolant system may not have been sufficiently burped. Upon inspection of the undercarriage, I found a significant leak around the mid-pipe as well as a small amount of coolant coming down the exhaust manifold side dripped over the oil pan. I finally found the crack in the coolant recovery return hose at the connection side on the intake manifold. Again, that replacement is being rushed over. I hope no damage was cause and fixing this line clears everything up. But now I'm worried I cause further damage to the car running it. We can't afford a major repair and I'll have to perform whatever work is required.

Please help!

[RickHaleParker]

If the engine did not overheat you should be OK. If it did not overheat, good catch finding the leak before it did.

[Irvine91]

So, it did overheat, but to only to the extent that the computer showed a message to stop the car and some minor steam rose from the engine bay. Nothing I would regard as excessive or that caused the motor to stop on its own. I should have the new Coolant return hose for the intake manifold to hook up to the reservoir. Any chance this fixes the issue entirely? If it's a true blue head gasket leak, could it have been caused by this single incident? Although the car was running very poorly before I changed the oil and coolant, it still ran without this problem. I can't imagine how merely changing fluids could cause engine trouble like this, all I have to blame now is that one hose that cracked slightly from being moved.

If it is a gasket leak caused because I ran the motor while the new coolant wasn't burped sufficiently, or the hose return line being compromised caused poor coolant flow, then I have to proceed next with a gasket seal compound. I did notice steam rising from the coolant reservoir, but thankfully no oil in it, nor did I see milkiness in the dipstick. I'll reassess tomorrow with the new hose in the mail. Last thing to mention, the petcock under the reservoir must have been badly plugged up from an off-brand coolant my dad used, the valve opening and closing did not release any kind of coolant. I had to remove a hose and drain it the old-fashioned way. This may have been the genesis of the overheating issue since the water jackets may have not kicked air out of the line in time. I hate that there is only the reservoir option to refilling coolant on this car. I can't find a direct radiator plug (pressurized) like in most vehicles.

[pgill]

Irvine,

You are on the right path.

Fix the cooling system problems first.

Hopefully you replaced the Thermostat when you removed the intake manifold. (the 3.2 thermostat housing breaks at about 10 years, for my 2010 S80 3.2 it was broken at 9 years)

After you get the cooling system in working order you should change the PCV valve, a broken PCV valve will allow excess oil into the intake manifold and this will cause the build up that you removed.

For reference here is a picture of my intake valve for my 3.2.



Note: if yours looked like this and you cleaned it then you are over thinking this. I didn't clean mine at all I just put it back together but I did replace the PCV preemptively.

Before you replace the PCV fix the cooling system.

Good luck

Paul

PS if possible post the part number for the hoses that you are replacing, it makes it easier to follow what is broken

PCV replacement link for my Land Rover with the same 3.2 https://www.freel2.com/forum/topic32107.html

[RickHaleParker]

So, it did overheat, but to only to the extent that the computer showed a message to stop the car and some minor steam rose from the engine bay.

The leaked coolant steamed because it was exposed to a lower pressure not because the engine over heated. The boiling point of a liquid is a function of temperature and pressure. Coolant systems run at a higher pressure then atmospheric pressure this raises the boiling point. When the leaked coolant was exposed to the lower atmospheric pressure the boiling point dropped and the leaked coolant flash steamed. Same principal that a gas turbine works on.

Physics is useful in daily life, pay attention in class.