Weird 1997 Volvo Turbo Problem

“My 97 Volvo Turbo is smoking like mad out the tailpipe. The engine is consuming a large amount of oil. I’ve been told it’s the turbo charger going out and that it will cost about 2 thousand dollars to fix. Is there anything else I can do?”

Well, you could sell your Volvo to the city to use as a mosquito fogger (I’ve seen a bunch of Volvos do that wild smoking.) Your turbo charger has seals inside it, because it is water cooled and oil lubricated. The oil seal section of the turbo is breaking down, so oil gets sucked into the engine intake system. Then it burns and makes smoke EVERYWHERE. Many of those Volvos have Japanese turbo chargers which are VERY expensive to replace (and from what I’ve seen they really aren’t rebuildable so you have to buy a brand new one.) BUT, if you want to try to save money, you can attempt a trick a Volvo mechanic showed me years ago. You can have a mechanic remove the turbo blades from the turbocharger. Then have him disconnect both the oil feed lines to the turbo and the water cooling lines. Your Volvo will be MUCH slower than it was, not having a working turbo charger on it anymore. BUT, if everything else on the car is OK, it can run for years that way. It just won’t have the zip you’ve become accustomed to.