Boiling Oil

[talke31]

please somebody give us a clue

went out today only did about 10 mile and had a strange smell coming from the engine at first thought it was the new exhaust but it got stronger so i pulled over opened the bonnet and the engine was red hot pulled out the dipstick and smoke poured out. came back home taking it easy opened the bonnet but no smoke.its not sending the temperature gauge up or losing power and there is no froth like a blown head gasket. any suggestions would be gratefully received.

[Guest vr6174bhp]

Any chance of knowing what the engine is? TDI' VR6, 2.3, 1.8t......

[talke31]

oh sorry its a 2 litre petrol dohc

[Guest vr6174bhp]

Whats the oil level like? mate of mines g60 did a similar thing! got real hot real quick, oil temp went off the scale, pressure dropped :D he left the engine to cool down and all was fine :D never did find out what the problem was? last I heard the car was still going strong and the new owner is well pleased with it :D

[talke31]

oil level is inbetween min and max mark, maybe its overdue to be changed

[Ivor_E_Tower]

What happened to the engine temperature gauge?

[talke31]

the temperature gauge stayed on halfway as normal

[Ivor_E_Tower]

Very weird ... how do you know the engine was red hot? Was it glowing? The oil doesn't provide much cooling to the head and block. If the oil pump had started to fail, then I could understand the oil temperature increasing but it would be hard to detect .... until the low oil pressure light came on (which I take it, didn't happen).

[Guest vr6174bhp]

Just because it's old oil shouldnt be a reason for it to get really hot, you say there was no power loss? whats the milage?

[talke31]

the mileage is 91000, the reason i knew the oil was hot as there was smoke coming from it

[Guest vr6174bhp]

oil will smoke, it gets rather hot doing it's job :huh: it comes into contact with hot parts, is put under high pressures while doing this! it's fairly normal for an engine to have smoke escaping from it if you pop the oil cap or pull the dipstick, when you say smoke and it was hot how much smoke and how hot? if the temp gauge didnt show a major increase then I wouldnt worry to much? if it was a hell of a lot of smoke and the engine was extremely hot then yes start worrying :o

[tim-spam]

It may be worth checking to see if the CCV system is working properly and not clogged.

[talke31]

not wishing to appear stupid what is a ccv system

[Guest vr6174bhp]

Crank Case Ventilation, the engine is a sealed unit and gases that bypass the piston rings and oil vapour is allowed out of the crank case, via a wire mesh filter and sucked back into the engine through the inlet manifold to be burnt off, this helps reduce unburnt hydrocarbon emissions

there is a valve on the front of the engine that regulates the crank case pressure, an easy way to see this in action is to remove the oil filler cap and place you hand over the opening with the engine running! you should feel a slight build up of pressure?