Blue/Grey smoke from exhaust, even when warmed up

[OllieVRS]

Merry Christmas everyone!

It's finally time for an update on the smoke situation. Long story short I still am not sure whether it was just moisture at the start and still moisture now.

The turbo's now been rebuilt and replaced and it may be just placebo but I feel it's become a bit more responsive, but not faster.

Here's a video of the exhaust valves my mechanic took, and look a bit dodgy on piston 1 and 3:

As for the smoke/steam, it's still there. Except in this following video, where I spent a good half hour flooring it up and down the local dual carriage way at 1am 

If the valve seals are to blame it would make sense, since when the engine's really hot they would swell and stop the leak, right? But it's the same result as if I had cleared out all the water out of the exhaust. Still a mystery that requires more testing.

I also got a check engine light that gave me a fright, but my mechanic friend confirmed it was just the N249 Valve (Diverter Valve) acting up since it's old. There's no loss in power or change in engine sound whatsoever. He cleared it 40 miles ago and it hasn't come back since.

I've done nearly 100 miles in the car and I can tell the oil consumption has improved, but to what extent it's too early to tell. It's tough for me to measure the oil level accurately as all the local shared parking spaces are on slopes.

The reason for this improvement could also be that two of the three external oil leaks have been fixed, the leaking turbo banjo bolt and the valve cover gasket. The only external oil leak left is the vacuum pump.

In the 6 months of owning this car I have driven it a grand total of 2 weeks, and I want nothing more than to simply drive it at this stage. I'll post again once I get an accurate oil consumption figure and/or if they're are any more problems.

Once again thanks everyone who chimed in to help me with this issue 

Happy Holidays 

[OllieVRS]

Done just over 200 miles now without any problems bar the random CEL that popped up at 40 miles, and have measured the oil at 10 miles and at 190 miles on the trip meter (nearly 300km between measurements).

Here's the photo at 10 miles:




Here's the photo at 190 miles:





I can't guarantee the accuracy since this on a slightly sloped parking space, but both measurements were done with the same car orientation and on a completely cold engine.

By visually guessing I'd say it's used 15% of the dipstick, so 150ml if it's 1 litre between max and min which is would make the oil consumption ~0.5L/1000KM, and that's with me doing 26mpg on average Do also keep in mind this is on 5W40 oil.

But that's much better than the ~5.0L/1000km it was doing before the turbo repair and valve cover gasket replacement, so I'm over the moon.

This almost sounds to good to be true 

[LC5F]

That's great news, sounds like it was the turbo oil seal - wasn't the guy going to check for valve leaks before doing the turbo?

This almost sounds to good to be true 

Don't tempt fate! - I think you have been through enough with this Skoda

[OllieVRS]

That's great news, sounds like it was the turbo oil seal - wasn't the guy going to check for valve leaks before doing the turbo?

He sure did, but decided to go ahead with the repair job anyway. He said he was certain it's the turbo based on how much oil there was coming out of the turbo and in the boost pipes. He's the one that took the video of the exhaust valves I posted in my reply on the 25th. Strangely enough he got the turbo rebuilt before sending me the video of the valves, which I think was a bit dodgy.

This almost sounds to good to be true 

Don't tempt fate! - I think you have been through enough with this Skoda