Hello all, been chasing an oil leak that turned out to be multiple on my roommates 2007 S6. The issue that seems to be at hand now is smoke coming out near the rear of the engine. The smoke comes from both driver and passenger side, but mainly passenger side is was smokes the most. I had already taken the manifold off and did the oil filter housing gaskets, all 4 solenoid o rings, and both valve covers. I’m starting to think that it could possibly be the upper timing chain covers? I used some UV dye to help pinpoint it but I just cannot see where it is coming from. Any help would be appreciated.
It could be timing chain covers, or sometimes, steering rack
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I never thought of steering rack. Would that be having oil leak onto the exhaust though? When I get home I’ll take some pictures and attach them to the thread. Another possibility I thought of was the valve covers themselves, but even with the car running I just cannot seem to find where any oil is coming out of.
Number 11 was leaking on my cars for months before it finally broke and started pouring out and smoking up everything. I went through on the driver side and the fitting was leaking so I cut it off and ran a entire new hose and re attached the piece that went into the rack with a clamp
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Okay so here are the pictures of where the smokes coming out of or atleast where I’m seeing it come out of. After reading what sprawwl had to say about his leak, I checked underneath the car and definitely some burnt oil on the exhaust that sits underneath the steering rack. Also worth noting after I had replaced the oil filter housing seals, only a droplet or two of oil is dripping off from under the car. Seems like most of it is just getting burnt up on exhaust.
Did you try maybe starting it cold and looking around before it heats up to see if it’s leaking instantly
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If it’s power steering I would think turning wheel would push a lot of pressure to leak if it’s leaking unless it needs to expand from the heat first to leak. Also Check the power steering resivor to see if it goes down
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I’m going to think about it more I’ll get back to you on it
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Well I have the day off tomorrow so I’ll start it up cold and triple check the camshaft postion adjusters and that steering rack. If you can think of anything else that I might be missing I’ll gladly take it thank you
You seem to have a lot of oil residue on both pictures provided. I think you should wash it off, and start searching for the leak after, as with that much debris you might not be able to find it.
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On mine it was on driver side, timing cover.
Engine out job, i have replaced at the same time head gaskets, did the timing, valve seals, roller rocker arms (prone to fail), and a lot of seals, gaskets and o-rings. 10 new injectors too by the way.
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See that’s what I’m kinda leaning towards it being, I can’t think of anything else that would be causing smoke on both sides and at the rear of the engine. Where you able to find out if it was the timing covers before you pulled the engine?
Yes. Checked with an endoscopic camera, saw the leak location, where the timing cover and the head gaskets joint. So we have decided with the mechanics to replace both head gaskets, and rebuild valve heads, replace timing, and most of the seals, o-rings and so on. We haven’t touched to the rod bearings and piston rings, the engine was only 100 000 km.
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Alright yall so after spending some quality time with some brake cleaner and shop rags I cleaned the engine up as good as my hand would let me and checked again to see where oil could be coming out of and I’m still at a loss. Checked power steering, fluid levels were good. Oil hasn’t gone down any since I topped it off, and coolant isn’t leaking anywhere. Is it possible that the oil residue being on the exhaust would cause it to smoke? No fluids are touching the ground at all either. Debating on whether it’s still worth spending the time on at this point
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"Is it possible that the oil residue being on the exhaust would cause it to smoke? "
Yes. I had same issue with bad valve cover gaskets on both side. After some time of running it vape out and no issue until next day
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100% you just need to run it for a while until it stops
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Well that’ll be my plan tonight then. Always looking for an excuse to drive the car anyways lol
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On my side after having runned 10 000 km, losing / burning 8 litres of oil, I have decided to fix all the leaks…
Alright yall sorry for the delay. I’ve been out driving the car and smoking still hasn’t stopped and I’ve even had the low oil light come on. So instantly I thought timing covers but then I noticed a whistling sound coming from the engine bay near the rear. Other theory now is maybe a bad pcv is causing too much negative pressure and pushing oil out somewhere? Words don’t do it enough justice so I’ll attach links to videos I took of a cold start and where the smoke comes from.
Cold start: https://youtu.be/TZiZTrmIy5I?si=lLzXxolaG-4w-mBa
Smoke: https://youtube.com/shorts/zExl_-gsrUA?si=D0CfrzMiL-QKBOOq
Also noting after driving around tonight there was a very loud screaming screeching sound coming from what sounded like the pcv. I’ve read that that’s a telltale sign of pvc failure but not too sure.