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I just went through this on my 2001 V6 with 160k (LONG) Posted by B Millar [Email]  (#1109)  [Profile/Gallery]
(more from B Millar) on Tue, 6 May 2008 05:49:13
In Reply to: Puff of morning smoke getting worse, paulssaab  [Profile/Gallery]
, Mon, 5 May 2008 20:55:22
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Okay, first off, don't worry about the white smoke. That's just because of the way the engine is programmed. Saab had a ton of problems with the V6 engine stalling when it was cold. The solution was to make it run extremely rich until it warms up. That's why you get lots of white smoke that smells kind of fuel"y". I sometimes get so much that I leave a trail down my driveway but it goes away and I'm not burning any fluids other than gas.
As for the blue smoke, I am almost positive it's your turbo. My car blew smoke every morning for about a year. Then it started doing it every time I started it after letting it sit for at least 45 min. There was one time that I started it and it just continued to blow smoke for about a minute, which is a very long time when you're with a bunch of your friends waiting to go out to lunch. With this I was burning about a quart of oil every 1000 miles.
Now for the fun part. I wasn't too concerned about the smoke at startup. I just kept and eye on my oil. Then I was merging onto the highway trying to get past some old people in a Buick and really punched the gas. When I let off I happened to look in the rear view, and there was nothing but blue/grey smoke. It was now blowing tons of smoke every time I finished accelerating. Not cool. I put some thicker oil in and it helped on light acceleration but I still looked like Uncle Buck after passing someone. Mine never completely failed (100% smoke, 100% of the time) but it finally got down to consuming a quart every 500 miles and I decided I needed to do something.
I called my independent mechanic and asked what my options were. They were:
1). New turbo from Saab, installed for +/-$2300 with 12k mile 12 month warranty.
2). Send the turbo out for rebuilding, +/-$1500 with 6k mile 6 month warranty.
I went with the cheaper one. Only problem was I had to leave my car for about 2 and a half weeks while the turbo was out. If you think you want to go the cheaper route on yours and do a rebuild, don't wait. All that oil going through the turbo at that temperature bakes onto the impellers and ruins them, and the impellers could eventually crash into the housing wall and break into tiny pieces and get sucked into your engine. Also, all the oil smoke isn't too good for your catalytic converter. After mine was all put back together my indy told me that my old turbo's oil seal on the exhaust side had completely broken off. It was in the exhaust side impeller housing rattling around, and actually ruined the housing so they gave me a new one in the rebuild. So I paid about $1450 for the rebuild, and for him to clean all the oil out of my intercooler. This was all back in October and I haven't had any smoke since.
Good luck! And feel free to ask more questions if I left something out, although it's not probable looking at the length of this post.
, Mon, 5 May 2008 20:55:22, Tue, 6 May 2008 10:42:41, Tue, 6 May 2008 09:47:11, Tue, 6 May 2008 10:36:03, Tue, 6 May 2008 05:49:13 <-- Viewing This Message, Tue, 6 May 2008 21:03:15
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