SAAB turbo leak

[SteveM]

My wife’s 2011 9-3 2.0 has been leaking a little oil. The mechanic looked at it today and said it’s the turbo.

Ideas?

[TheIglu]

See smoke? New turbo.


Typically the bearings/bushings on the impeller wear over time, then eat the oil seals. Good idea to change it so you are sucking in chunks of metal into your intake taking out the whole engine.


No smoke?

Could also be an oil feed/return line issue, but that would require some investigation visually while it was running to be sure.


Turbo's are a consumable. They spin so fast, bound to happen.

[SteveM]

No smoke.

I’m going to take the best look I can tomorrow

[xrocket21]

Loose banjo

[aldend123]

My wife’s 2011 9-3 2.0 has been leaking a little oil. The mechanic looked at it today and said it’s the turbo.

Ideas?

The turbo is oil cooled and has an oil feed and oil return line. Probably a banjo-bolt on the feed, and a paper gasket and o-ring on the return pipe draining in to the oil pan. If you see twice as many, then it may be coolant cooled as well. It may be difficult to identify due to the position, as well as any heat shielding and underbody plastic covering. Give it an eyeball, and if it's not obvious, clean it all and check back in a day or two.

How bad's the leak? Couple drips in the drive way? If it's more than that, or if it appears strong and then not, I'd guess oil feed line sprays when under load.

I always liked the way those cars looked. Shame they never got to sell more.

[Falko]

How many miles? I ran two SAABs to 150k and never had a turbo issue. They actually have pretty strong turbos, mechanically anyway from what I'm told. Both of mine had the turbos toward the top of the engine, pretty accessible with a removal of a heat shield. Good luck, I really liked mine.