(the “didn’t fill” from above are all from AFTER the fix)
I did this a long time ago but I only posted it now because I wanted to make sure the issue is gone. And it is!
I finally found the culprit that’s been filling up my damn air filter, making the car run like shite and using oil like diddy.
It’s this at #4, the oil separator.
This car hasn’t had an oil change in a LONG time before I got it, gunked up the oil separator, clogged it, and the oil started going up instead of back down into the engine. Swapped, and you can see in the photo above how it was immediately fixed after. It’s actually pretty easy to remove, it just takes time to take off the airbox first, or at least that’s my mechanic told me. How he didn’t figure it out when I asked why I had oil in my airbox is beyond me, but whatever.
The whole job is almost as cheap as the oil I had to keep adding.
If you have this issue, you will see oil coming out from this tube that goes in the airbox at #36.
You didn’t ask for an auto troubleshooting tip? Well too bad!!!
Mine’s a Golf 4 1.4 petrol AXP by the way. Though, I think many cars have similar things.
If you know a community that could use this info lmk, I’m still trying to figure out lemmy.
Not all cars have oil separators, but a blocked PCV valve can cause the same symptoms of oil being sucked up from the crankcase into the air box/intake/throttle body, and thus rapid oil consumption. This happens especially on cars that are neglected in terms of oil change intervals and hence sludge up.
The PVC valve is one of the items that need periodic replacing or at least cleaning (and if cleaning subsequent thorough drying before reinstalling). Also, check the associated lines aren’t clogged too, a weed wacker line is a good tool to poke through the lines to check. The PCV valve is almost never mentioned in service booklets as routine service item, it borders malice by the manufacturers and grinds my gears.
The amount of people I talk to about a PCV valve being the cause of their oil consumption and who never heard about, or know what it is, is too damn high.
Before you pay a mechanic thousands for open engine surgery replacing stem seals or oil control rings, check your PCV valve, gents.
Yea nobody I talked about even knew what that thing was, besides one dude.
But yes I did that too. On my car there’s only one hose going from it into the airbox and I straight up replaced it. It was really cheap, like 10 euro or something.
God I love having a cheap car. I bet on a newer one that thing costs like 5 times as much.
Kinked pcv hoses can cause this too, especially on older engines with more blow-by. Overpressure in the crank case will blow oil out or cause it to burn.