E60/61 535D Tourer - Oil leak around turbos / intercooler.
Discussion
Collecting my 535D from the garage in a bit, it's been in there nearly a week. It's a 2008 LCI model. I asked them to look into a screechy noise it was making a while back, sort of sounded like a belt slipping but turned out to be an exhaust leak around the turbo area. Said to book it back in for a proper look which I did and in the meantime manged to bust a front suspension spring as well so that needed doing also.
The noise turned out to be a broken stud on the exhaust manifold which is fair enough but while it was stripped down they got me to come in a take a look at all the oil round the intercooler and in the undertray etc. Now I know it loses a bit, enough to drip onto my drive but it's not excessive and the oil level in the engine always stays the same so it has not really concerned me. The mechanic suggested the oil was coming from the turbos, they may not be long for this world, and I could end up with a runaway. Suggested replacing them (both) while it was stripped down. Now I'm thinking about changing cars anyway so the thought of spending the quoted ~£1k on two new turbos didn't really go down too well so I told them not to bother.
Having Googled the subject a bit it seems like this sort of oil leak and some oil in the intake isn't that uncommon. The suggested cause is the crank case breather system which isn't very good at separating out the oil so quite a bit can end up in the intake. This then leaks out around the intercooler pipework. Seems feasible to me? Could I have potentially just spent a grand on two new turbos to replace ones that are absolutely fine? They're not noisy or smokey that I've noticed.
Other stuff is slowly going wrong on it anyway so it's probably time to move on. Shame really as it's been a brilliant car until fairly recently
The noise turned out to be a broken stud on the exhaust manifold which is fair enough but while it was stripped down they got me to come in a take a look at all the oil round the intercooler and in the undertray etc. Now I know it loses a bit, enough to drip onto my drive but it's not excessive and the oil level in the engine always stays the same so it has not really concerned me. The mechanic suggested the oil was coming from the turbos, they may not be long for this world, and I could end up with a runaway. Suggested replacing them (both) while it was stripped down. Now I'm thinking about changing cars anyway so the thought of spending the quoted ~£1k on two new turbos didn't really go down too well so I told them not to bother.
Having Googled the subject a bit it seems like this sort of oil leak and some oil in the intake isn't that uncommon. The suggested cause is the crank case breather system which isn't very good at separating out the oil so quite a bit can end up in the intake. This then leaks out around the intercooler pipework. Seems feasible to me? Could I have potentially just spent a grand on two new turbos to replace ones that are absolutely fine? They're not noisy or smokey that I've noticed.
Other stuff is slowly going wrong on it anyway so it's probably time to move on. Shame really as it's been a brilliant car until fairly recently
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