Merry Christmas to all!
My daughter arrived home from college last night in her 2011 1.4 turbo cruze and calls as she's pulling into the driveway after a 200 mile trip saying "come outside my car is smelling again". Recently she had the overflow reservoir crack, lost a bunch of coolant, and had the car overheat. Dealer fixed all this and claims that a pressure check was good and didn't believe the head gasket was blown or anything like that. They also did an oil change. This was 3 weeks ago. My first thought when she mentioned the smell was that there was probably some leftover coolant that was causing it. Well, I popped the hood and saw this!
I saw some smoke coming off the manifold and heat shield so I told her to shut it off. First thought was "oh God, it ran itself out of oil" so I pulled the dipstick - and to my surprise the level was completely full. I looked in the oil filter cap (not sure why exactly lol) and everything seemed fine. Then I had her start it again and rev to 2000, then 3000, then 4000... no spray anywhere that I could see. So she shut it off and it has sat since last night. I've done a ton of reading and it sounds like it could be as simple as the oil filler cap not having been seated correctly from the oil change (wish I would have known that so I would have been more conscious when I removed the cap to see if it was fully seated), or it could be a bad PCV component, or a turbo oil line seal, or perhaps other things I haven't come across yet. Given that nobody is open today/tomorrow and she was supposed to go back to school for work the morning of the 26th, I feel massive pressure to get this resolved and know 100% that I have done so. I can't put her back on the highway not knowing if it is fixed and risk her having a car fire or something. But the fact that I saw no spray, when the oil had clearly sprayed very recently, I'm a bit baffled. Any initial thoughts from you gurus on the most likely cause?
Thank you!
My daughter arrived home from college last night in her 2011 1.4 turbo cruze and calls as she's pulling into the driveway after a 200 mile trip saying "come outside my car is smelling again". Recently she had the overflow reservoir crack, lost a bunch of coolant, and had the car overheat. Dealer fixed all this and claims that a pressure check was good and didn't believe the head gasket was blown or anything like that. They also did an oil change. This was 3 weeks ago. My first thought when she mentioned the smell was that there was probably some leftover coolant that was causing it. Well, I popped the hood and saw this!

I saw some smoke coming off the manifold and heat shield so I told her to shut it off. First thought was "oh God, it ran itself out of oil" so I pulled the dipstick - and to my surprise the level was completely full. I looked in the oil filter cap (not sure why exactly lol) and everything seemed fine. Then I had her start it again and rev to 2000, then 3000, then 4000... no spray anywhere that I could see. So she shut it off and it has sat since last night. I've done a ton of reading and it sounds like it could be as simple as the oil filler cap not having been seated correctly from the oil change (wish I would have known that so I would have been more conscious when I removed the cap to see if it was fully seated), or it could be a bad PCV component, or a turbo oil line seal, or perhaps other things I haven't come across yet. Given that nobody is open today/tomorrow and she was supposed to go back to school for work the morning of the 26th, I feel massive pressure to get this resolved and know 100% that I have done so. I can't put her back on the highway not knowing if it is fixed and risk her having a car fire or something. But the fact that I saw no spray, when the oil had clearly sprayed very recently, I'm a bit baffled. Any initial thoughts from you gurus on the most likely cause?
Thank you!