Warning sign #1 - Smoke on startup. White/Blue-ish in color. Stays around for a while until the car is warmed up.

Warning sign #2 - Smells like oil burning.

Warning sign #3 - Smoke intermittently comes and goes.

Good news is that it is most likely NOT your engine. While your compression is not great, it's not that bad. Good sign.

Bad news is that the smoke is definitely coming from your turbos. It may come and go for a little while, but it will get worse. Check your rearview mirror whenever you go WOT .... if you see a big cloud of smoke after you shift, then yeah, your turbos are fried. Like someone already said, I hope you got a good deal. New turbos are expensive. (Do a search on rebuilt turbos, if you want to know how to waste your money.)

 

I paid 9600 for it. I think that is a good deal. I think it is the turbos also.
But once the car is warmed up it does not smoke at all.
Rob

 

Typical for turbos that are starting to leak. Once the carbon seals really start leaking oil, you'll get smoke all the time. Well, new turbos will run you about $3K. Good luck.

 

Trust me on this one. I just broke down my whole motor and it was a bad oil control seal like I said before. when you shut the car off the bad o-ring allows the oil to seap into the combustion chamber. I high doubt it is the turbos.

One way to tell is to look in your trotle body. if it is completely soaked with oil then sure it is your turbos. But I will bet it is not. FYI oil can NOT leak from the turbo back into the exhaust ports. So that is not a possibility. My engine was all carbined up so I know that the problem that I identified was what was causing the smoke.

 

Trust me on this one. I just broke down my whole motor and it was a bad oil control seal like I said before. when you shut the car off the bad o-ring allows the oil to seap into the combustion chamber. I high doubt it is the turbos.

One way to tell is to look in your throtle body. if it is completely soaked with oil then sure it is your turbos. But I will bet it is not. FYI oil can NOT leak from the turbo back into the exhaust ports. So that is not a possibility. My engine was all carbined up so I know that the problem that I identified was what was causing the smoke.

 

Alright guys, I'm now confused. Is it the engine or is it the turbos?
Rob

 

bump

 

You won't know until you start doing some checking.

Some quick things to check for a coolant seal failure:

* Pull the spark plugs and see if you have any coolant on them
* Open the filler neck with the car off and cold. Leave it off and start the car. Look in the filler neck and see if you see "champaign bubbles" bubbling up in the coolant.

As for the turbos, not much to tell unless you pull them off the car or you are going through a lot of oil.

 

I agree. You are going to have to get your hands dirty. Hope you have a daily driver other than the 7. I had to buy one 5 mo ago because of the same problem. My downpayment on it was saved for my rebuild. Oh well. Whats 6 months without driving the 7. AAHHH!

 

Yes I have the same problem right now. Started the car up last night and it smoked a lot! And the past week or so it has been smoking at WOT when I shift. Plus I have to add about a quart of oil in between changes (that's been going on all summer!) And I'm only getting about 8 lbs of booost. I checked for bubbles in the filler neck and that came up negative. So is it my oil control rings (what are those, btw?) or my turbos? Still have to check compression, but last time I did a compression test it was okay. That was over a year ago though. Car has 110,000 miles. Bought it at 92,000.

BTW, I bought my car from an "older" woman. 4th grade schoolteacher in Columbus.