Hey guys,

So I've finally been reunited with my car (after previously being left home while waiting on a coolant temp sensor to be sent over Thanksgiving). Doing some last-minute Christmas shopping today, and being stuck in traffic forever, the same noxious smell I had months ago and had since disappeared is back...and worse-smelling than ever. It only gets pulled in through the air vents, and I can't figure out where it's coming from. I don't smell it outside the car or under the hood with the car running. It goes away if you turn on recirculate. My dad has been driving the car while I've had his, and he of course "never noticed anything" wrong with it.

It almost smells like badly burnt bacon, or a kind of oily smell.

My PCV system does need to be cleaned, but I don't think the smoke coming out of the dipstick smells anything like this. It's not very much anyway, so I don't think it needs to be done immediately. I use about 1/2 a quart of oil between oil changes every 5,000 miles - I'm not sure where it goes, but I recently replaced the oil cap gasket, and I think hasn't used any since. It passed an NC state inspection just fine today - the exhaust smells totally normal out the back end.

So I did some investigating.

http://i105.photobucket.com/albums/m214/bblackbr/1222091433.jpg

This area is where I smell it. There was a BARELY noticeable thin trail of smoke rising from this area, in between the turbo heat shield and the engine block. All I see in that area besides the turbo are coolant and fuel lines...the wisp of smoke was coming up in between those two screws on top

Then I crawled up under the car.


The turbo's covered in oil, I'm not sure why. It looks like it's been there some time. The oil return line was replaced a couple years ago.

http://i105.photobucket.com/albums/m214/bblackbr/IMG_2421.jpg

http://i105.photobucket.com/albums/m214/bblackbr/IMG_2423.jpg

Those are the only other dirty areas I saw - the rest of the underside of the car is completely clean. It doesn't leak oil or anything.

My Honda had a similar smell, but it went away after I replaced a leaky valve guide that leaked oil out onto the exhaust manifold. That engine was mounted so the cylinders were horizontal though; the Volvo's is vertical, so that rules that out.

And furthermore, does anyone have any ideas what that smell is coming from? I don't really know of anything in that area besides the turbo. Turbo works & boosts fine, and all the lines are fit snug up to it last time I worked on the car a month ago, and still appear to be fine. I haven't removed the heat shield to get a good look under there, as it's still far too hot, but I wanted a couple things to check before I start poking around.

Hmm, sorry I can't get all of the pictures to show up, but if you can cut & paste those links they will work!