I bought a 1996 volvo 850 T5 3 days ago (wednesday) and on thursday the service light came on. I checked the engine oil and there was hardly anything in there, so i changed the air filter, oil and oil filter. On friday i noticed that there was some black soot spraying out of the exhaust when i started the engine (also a little bit of water) and a smell of petrol around exhaust. i was wondering if this was bad or just something that T5's do, and if it is a problem what is it ?.

Thanks

Ps. i am a complete noob.

okay, about the soot, if you run your finger around the inner edge of the exhaust tip, is the soot wet or dry? the "water" does that smell of fuel? have you done a code scan yet. but not a lot of oil, how much is not a lot? like zero, or down a third?

For easier to see, put a carboard near the exhaust and start the engine. Then you will be able to see more clearly what was emitted

i took ampangbear's suggestion of putting cardboard by the exhaust to see what was emmited. I got someone to start the engine while i held the card by the end of the exhaust and it ennded up covered with a black WET splater. I think it was a mixture of water and soot because it did not smell like petrol or oil. And about the engine oil level, it was just showing on the tip of the dip stick. Oh and this might sound stupid but what is a code check?

Thanks for all the help so far

get a scanner or find someone who has one, by the shifter there is a funny looking coin holder, if you lift it up, there is a plug there, that is where the scanner plugs into. read any fault codes. since you have added oil, is there any loss? this wet splatter, was it greasy and wet or just damp? could just be the turbo kicking crap out the pipe, or a bad seal in the turbo. a smell of fuel could mean running rich to compensate for this. is your filter clogged or dirty?

Hmmm, yes, just smell the liquid that came out via the exhaust. If indeed it is water, then it's generally still OK.

Make sure you engine oil level is up to mark.

Also, a code check is when you read the error message that the car's onboard diagnosis computer has evaluated.

the wet splater is not greasy but is damp although it does smell slightly pf petrol. I have not been able to get hold of a code reader yet but hope to soon. also there is no loss of oil at all.

Thanks for all your advice so far.

Keep us updated, yes?
:)

I inspected the spark plugs the other day and they were completly nackered. Also the gap was about twice what it should have been. So i bought some new spark plugs with the correct gap preset and the soot and smoke has completly gone. it's still using a bit to much fuel but over all there has been a big improvement.

i am glad that the soot has cleared up, now about the excessive fuel comsumption (wow, big word, huh) you need to run a scanner to see if any codes pop up. usually the computer will handle any and all fuel problems itself. it won't run rich unless there is a problem. now a question, have you changed your injectors recently? like getting a set of blue or greens ones as opposed to the stock injectors? if so, it would run rich since the computer can't handle the different sized inkectors without a corresponding ecu upgrade.

Have you reset the dash computer to recalculate again?