Diesel VEA engine oil consumption status
 

I am considering changing to a V90 from my present estate car, but want to know whether the oil consumption issue has now been resolved, and if so, when Volvo made changes - I have heard that they changed the piston rings at one point, and moved to AdBlue at another point. Does anyone know when these happened? I'm looking for a used V90, so want to avoid major engine problems and don't fancy having to add litres of oil and don't want to end up with a dud engine. My present 5 cylinder Volvo diesel has been exemplary...

The original design of the piston oil control rings for VEA engines included drain holes that were too small and that consequently clogged up too easily.

Also, if I understand things correctly, the historical EGR cooler issues created carbon crap that then dutifully blocked those drain holes.

Those blocked drain holes then stopped engine oil on the cylinder walls from draining back into the sump and, instead, it got burnt, leading to higher oil consumption.

The EGR cooler has since been redesigned a couple of times and, to my understanding, has been less problematic since then.

Also, Volvo redesigned the piston oil control rings and introduced that change in 2016 from engine number 1501327 onward. Engine number is recorded on the V5 registration document, so you can check this for any car that you're looking at.

On a positive note, and others might correct me, as far as I can see from the lack of relevant forum posts for SPA platform vehicles, the oil consumption and EGR issues don't seem to affect SPA platform VEA diesels.

Someone else will need to chime in regarding AdBlue.

Thanks @Sotosound.

I wonder whether people are now trusting the VEA engine to do the 150-200k+ miles without these issues that the 5 cylinder can clearly do.

I notice from your post that you have a 2014 V70 D4 - 5 cylinder or 4? I had been looking at the V70 D3 and D4 4 cylinders too until I found out about the VEA issues, as the tax is so low and they seem economical.

The VEA engine has been around nearly 10 years now and is well proved. there were only the odd cases of oil consumption issues up to 2016 . the vast majority are fine.

4-cylinders, approaching 160k miles. :)

2 cases of VEA engines going bang on the SPA section of the forum recently with volvo offering no help. My own VEA engine drank more oil than I could fill it with at less than 60k miles. It had to go! They are still problematic with high cost repairs. I love the look of the new models but keeping the 5 cylinders for now. I’m just not convinced they are as good.

What year was your VEA oil drinker?

It was a 2015 so granted it could well of been an effected engine with the rings but once you have been biten it puts you off especially as it also needed an EGR valve and cooler and the cam cover sorting. Nearly a £2000 pound repair. The 2017 models that have gone bang on the SPA section sound like injector issues rather than oil consumption but still not good.

Oil Consumption
 

I have just found this thread which may be the answer to a problem I have with my S80. I am a first time Volvo owner and not particularly technical and I don't understand a lot of what has been posted previously about various engines types, so I am hoping somebody can spell this out in layman's terms.
My car is a 2014 Diesel S80 with a D4 engine, it has covered 60K miles, it has a full Volvo Dealership service history, the cylinder head was rebuilt by my local dealer at 30K due to a problem with the valves sticking and since then it has been fine until June of this year when it said it needed half a litre of oil, the same thing happened again today. The car hasn't been driven hard so I am surprised it needed oil again so soon. I would like to know whether this problem gets worse over time or is it just a case that these engines need a top up every couple of months? Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

How many miles have you done since June?

Also, does your D4 have a 5-cylinder engine or a 4-cylinder engine?