Hi does anyone have an idea why my kombi is intermitently blowing lots and lots of smoke ? Oil light coming on when turning corners but when I checked - its full ?? I live an hour+ away from vw mechanic and the kombi is my daily driver so any ideas on what to check would be a great help . I had the motor reconditioned before christmas ?
THANKS

Have you checked the oil level whe the vehaicle is absolutely level flat I got caught with this when I first bought a Kombi & found that wher I was checking the oil at home & it was showing full mark it was really equal to the low mark - the oil light was coming on at roundabouts attacked at high speed also exactly when is it blowing smoke. Is each time it does it under the same circumstances & conditions ? - it is a worry

sounds like too much oil..... if it is over full it will blow it out through the breather which is connected to the carbs and therefore you will burn the oil and make clouds of white smoke it will stop but it's best to take some out ....think green. to take some out undo the sump plug and drain some out into a container ...and yes check the oil when the car is level

I hate this "level" thing I carry a level guage & take the damn thing down the lane to a special spot & then jack the car up a certain amount, it is unbelievable just how the apparent level can change with just 5 degrees. thought it was overfull too but wonddering about the oil light, may be 2 separate issues

I've added an extra mark to my dip stick to match the slope in my drive way

I am lucky enough that if I get the right parking spot in the street the low mark means it is full. Funny thing yesterday- when I had my periodic jack it up level fluid check I finaly decided to check the diff level (first time) which almost always means you will need to add oil & of course heaps of quite warm oil spewed out all over me ---over over full!

well just make sure its pretty close to level.

The most important thing to keep track of is oil consumption, more than the top mark to the bottom mark in 1000 miles means serious problems and rebuild time.

The oil light coming on corners means it is suffering from oil starvation, the oil light comes on at about 6-10psi. Insufficient pressure will cause the metal bearing surfaces to rub onto the metal journals on your crankshaft. metal on metal is bad... eventually the connecting rod may weld itself to the crankshaft and try to jump free from the crankcase... which means a totally new engine.

Also another thing to check is crankshaft endplay, open the decklid and give the crankshaft pulley a good pull and push, if you feel or see any kind of fore/aft movement that means your thrust bearing is toast, there is a massive clearance between the thrust surface on your flywheel/crankshaft and the bearing which will cause low oil pressure.

The thrust bearing is there to take fore/aft forces from the clutch, these forces aren't all that great so if your endplay is excessive it is almost certain that your engine case/bearings are worn to the sh!t and the engine needs a rebuild.

What colour is the smoke, generally blue/grey smoke means it is oil, white is water/condensation and black is unburnt fuel from an overly rich fuel/air mixture.

When you got it "reconditioned" what did they actually do, reconditioned is a very very loose term.