turbine guy

I need your help..........My daughter's '99 A4 is blowing oil, a lot of oil.
140,000km. 2.8l engine, manual trans. Well maintained and driven easy.
She had the car in Edmonton last week for a visit to friends, and on the return trip to BC, the low oil light came on in Whitecourt. (Half way home, about 250 km.) She had to put in three litre of oil every hour to make it home. Now before you get all rightious on me, it was -41c in places, night time, and a young lady. She didn't know what to do, so she just kept pulling over and putting in oil, whenever the light came on. The car otherwise ran fine, and yesterday, I put it on the lift, and there is oil from front bumper to rear. Now the crazy bit. I topped off the oil, started the engine and.........nothing. Not a drop leaking anywhere. The engine sounds fine, and runs perfect. I pulled the oil filter to see if the gasket had failed. Nope, it was fine. I went over the whole engie with a mirror and light, suspecting a failed gaset or something, but nothing was obvious. Took it for a drive, and not a drop leaking. So what do you think? At the -41c, did the crank case vents "frost off", allowing the crankcase to pressurize?
Your thoughts and suggestions please. I'm reasonable mechanically astute, and have a lift in my carport to check things out.

turbine guy.

1move

iTrader: (1)

Is it a turbo? Was she boosting a lot during the drive, like slow downs and the accelerations? I would check the turbo hosing as well if the car is turboed

turbine guy

Nope, Naturally aspirated.
Ok, I just drove the car into town and thoroughly washed it from top to bottom, and drove back home. (About 25km.) Not a drop of oil leaking, and the car is running like a champ.
So, unless something makes it'self apparant, I have to chalk it up to moisture in the oil, causing the crankcase vent system to freeze off.
If someone else has any ideas, I'd like to hear them.

Turbine guy.

Espritman99

2 hrs after i bought my A4 the engine light came on. 2 days later I had a major oil leak problem. Every time I came to a stop and idled for a min or more i would see smoke rising from under the hood and it would smell like burning oil in the car. Right after I noticed the burning oil I took it straight to Audi to find that all the cam seals had blown outwards and were leaking major amounts of oil out. Problem was attributed to the fact that it was -40C and colder at the time and the dealer I purchased the car from had, had the car sitting there for months without plugging in before starting. My only saving grace was the fact that there was 1 week of warranty left on the car and everything was covered. My car is now always plugged in. Unfortunately it is only a pan heater, but at least it is something.

turbine guy

Great, thanks. The guys at Autobahn Performance noticed a lot of oil in the spark plug holes when they changed the plugs, so I had my daughter buy a set of valve cover gaskets while she had the car there. Looks like I need to pull the covers and see what the cam seals are doing. Otherwise, sounds exactly the same as your situation.

turbine guy.

Espritman99

I don't know about how it is with Audi's but I had the problem on my old Honda Accord where the spark plug holes were always full of oil. That had to do simply with the valve cover gasket wearing out. Didn't contribute to any real oil leaking though. Replaced the seal once and a little later longer they were full of oil again so simply left them full of oil. 5 years later they are still full of oil and the car is still running like a charm with 460k km's on it burns a little oil now, but no oil leaking from valve cover gasket that has amounted to anything like the problem you are having. Even when i had the problem with my A4 I was not going through the amount of oil you are talking about.

turbine guy

I'm with you there, I have a couple other cars, '90 Beretta GTZ and a '88 Mazda 323 GTX, that both fill the plug holes with oil, and it doesn't seem to effect anything. (Ice racer, and spare winter beater car.)

I checked my daughter's car one more time this afternoon, and indeed, there seems to be quite a bit of condensation (water) in the oil. Pulling the oil fill cap while the engine is idling, a bit of steam can be seen coming out, and while driving, the oil temp gauge never gets above 85 degrees C. (It's currently -19c here.) I think it simply needs to be driven and flash off all the moisture in the oil.
This week, I'll pull the valve covers and see how the cam seals look, and while in there, change the gaskets.

Glad to hear that the problem is not unheard of, and that it is a relatively easy fix.

The oil pan heaters are only 200 watts, so I'm thinking of putting on a second one. The pan has lots of room for two, and it can only help.

What the heck are we doing living in an area that gets down to -40c for anyways?

turbine guy.

Espritman99

Now that I am using the pan heater on my car it has made a big difference in starting. On really cold starts it still turns over slower, but fires up right away and doesn't have all the loud whining noises that it did before. My only concern with the pan heaters is fire!