Excessive smoke from exhaust.

[Lex Andrews]

Hi all,

I'm trying to get through a few chores on the car before the annual holiday in 12 weeks time. One of the issues I have is that for the past couple of months I've had excessive smoke from the exhaust. My initial thoughts were head gasket. I do a lot of town driving so the engine rarely gets hot. I've had it into the garage. They've had it pinned to a lot of town driving and as such it's not removing all moisture out of the exhaust.
When it smokes is as though the choke is permanently on. I've replaced the fuel filter as yesterday I started the car twice and when the revs dropped the car died. I've had no engine light on from the problem. It's done that twice in the last 3 weeks. The turbo seems fine and it doesn't throw any black smoke as you would get with a faulty turbo.

Pulled up to the mother in laws and noticed that the smoke was still apparent. So I checked the exhaust and found traces of oil in the tail pipe. I'm not losing oil as I can see and there's no 'mayo' on any caps. It's not losing water either. I also need to change the silencer as the exterior skin is severely corroded but not holed yet.

Anybody with any thoughts?

We travel to the South of France at the end of May. Ideally the car would go with us. If not, hire car....

[mienkoiv]

does the smoke smell "oil" and is it blue shaded? if so, my guess is the turbo going bad

you can check turbo´s condition by taking off the down-pipe from the turbo and then feel by fingers if there is any loose on the axis of the turbo.

also check all PVC hoses, especially that starting from engine, approximately behind the ´SAAB´ -text.sometimes that plastic nipple is broken...

[notanothersaabstory]

also check all PVC hoses, especially that starting from engine, approximately behind the ´SAAB´ -text.sometimes that plastic nipple is broken...

This is quite normal.
on another note when do you recognize the smoke..ie cold start or after warmed over.

[Burnsside42]

As said -c heck PVC system first. If this is in order - your turbo is on it's way out. Common yes. Labor is about 304 hours in the US for a turbo on a 9-5 and it's about an $600-$900 new turbo from Saab. There are remanufactered units out there which actually work you may want to look into.

[mienkoiv]

inside valve cover, there are two little pipes,they might be clogged as well...these attach directly on that nipple behind "SAAB" -text...

but my vote is for turbo...and if you buy a new one, please get Mitsubishi TD04...that Garret is peace of S***...