Been noticing my driver side tailpipe gets more soot on it than the passenger pipe. Is this normal? I'm running 0w40 and oil consumption is around 1qt for 1200 miles.

I've had my 2006 997.1 Cab (32k miles) for about a year now. I daily drive it and only put on about 3k miles this year. Just wanted to make sure nothing serious was happening here...

I'll post pictures later today.

 

No CEL. No untoward engine behavior. No problem.

Soot happens.

Have to comment: If you daily drive the car and only put 3K miles per year on the car that's just 8 miles per day average. That's not enough to get the engine up to temperature.

You need to try to take the car out for longer drives. 40 or 50 miles long and at at a pace that has the engine RPMs something more than just above idle.

My guess is the engine needs an Italian tuneup thrown at it once in a while. No need to go all medieval on the car/engine, just take it out for a nice long drive once in a while.

 

And burn off the water in the engine and oil.

Peace,
Bruce in Philly

 

Some Porsches consume no oil. Some do, like yours. While Porsche's oil usage spec is something crazy high like 1 litre per 1,000km (please check) yours still seems high at 1 litre per 1,900km. And considering yours has a fair amount of moisture due to the short distance driving style, I'd be even more concerned.

 

Long drive it

 

I drive around 10 miles (total) M-F. The car does get to 200+ temp and I'll keep it below 4k before it gets to this temp. Every other weekend I'll take her out for a 20-40 mile spirited trip.

Is there anything I can do different besides taking a longer route to work?

 

Does anyone think it could be the AOS (Air Oil Separator) failing or would that result in evenly distributed sooting/smoke on both sides? One quart every 1200 is a lot.

It might be interesting to pull all of your spark plugs and see if one of them is showing a lot of oil buildup or if they all look evenly cooked (or just on one bank). If it is just one showing oil then there would be some concern. Could it be you just have a external leak somewhere or would that be obvious where you park?

 

She is garage kept and not a drop on the ground. Car has been leak proof since owning. I'm taking her into the indy shop for new water pump soon (precaution / unrelated). I'll ask them to check the plugs, but during PPI plugs looked clean, but replaced them anyway.

 

If you have no codes.... that is a good thing.

Not to scare you, but since you don't have a code..... I was at the dealer where a Carrera was in and was throwing some code (I don't know what it was). The foreman asked the tech to examine the exhaust tips.... one was shiny, the other sooty. He then asked the tech to smell the exhaust.... sweet.

Anyone guess what this was? "cracked head" and was burning coolant. The coolant apparently "cleans" the exhaust system.

Peace
Bruce in Philly

 

thanks for the scare...I'll keep an eye out for the CEL.

 

So, I've been hesitant about posting to this.

If you go to 911uk board, and I don't suggest you do cause they seem to be alamists, it's an indication of bore scoring!

However, if you do a search on this board, with Left sooty exhaust, there will be a couple threads about it that turned out to be nothing was wrong, and that's after taking it to the dealership and doing a bore scope and a lot of other diagnostics.

I'll admit I do get a little more soot on the left/driver's side. I haven't done a bore scope, but it seems to happen more quickly when puttering around town, and it's a little less when I'm doing some highway driving. Opening yours up some might help.

Also, I did read somewhere that someone put in a low temperature thermostat and it seemed to help with that as well. Don't know why either.

Like someone said, some of these cars burn a little more oil than others, mines about 3/4 of a quart per 3000 mile oil change. There is another person here, Edgey(or something like that) screen name, burns about 1 quart every 1000 or 1500 since new and has over 70000 miles on his car with no problems.

I wouldn't worry about it unless you start drinking more oil and hearing some tapping noises, which can be an indication of bore scoring.

However, if you are worried about it, have your indy do a borescope to see what the bores look like and go from there.



Mike

 

On the chance it is the AOS, there is a test for that that isn't too difficult IF you have the right tool to check the vacuum present at the oil cap. It is described in the Pelican article here: http://www.pelicanparts.com/techarti..._Separator.htm

Regarding mikeborden's post, the check I had recommended in my earlier post to examine the spark plug tips for one showing oil build-up was alluding to a way to perform an initial check for the scored cylinder problem he mentions... but as he says... that's a tough one to say out loud when it could reasonably be a number of other things.

Hopefully you will find that you just happen to have a high oil consumer and that it is nothing to worry about, but I know how easy it is to worry until you have at least ruled out the bad things. Good luck!

 

A lot of good advice so far.

OK, the subject had been broached. There are a lot of minor things that could be causing you to have what you are seeing. But to be thorough and better help you guide your Indy, you may want to look up Hartech's (in the UK) extensive article on the 911 motor. This includes the theory of why the left pipe is more inclined to being dirty.

While the plugs are out, the boroscope should be a given.

Good luck and keep us posted.

 

Boroscope and plugs were checked/replaced when I bought the car a year ago. Everything looked good/clean. I'm doing the water pump soon, so I'll ask for another check.

I cleaned up the pipes last night and both look sparkling chrome again. There is no visible smoke (any color) on start-up or under load. That I can notice from stand still...

 

That's all good news!

One other thought ... Do you park with the passenger's side lower than the driver's side? If so, oil that remains on the cylinder wall could seep past the rings and into the combustion chamber creating soot at the next start up. If you were outside of the car when it started you would see a puff of smoke from the left tailpipe (right cylinder bank crosses behind the motor and exits to the left). I've seen this on others' cars even after a brief stop.