Is that a common thing on a total stock (but high miler) Octy vRS?

 

I could tell from the bolts the side mount had never been inspected/removed since the car was new, and when removed I would estimate about 100ml to 125ml of engine oil came out of the pipework.  Is that excessive?  The car was boosting and running fine, so would never have suspected that amount of oil would be in there (apart from the fact car has done 260,000 miles!)

Many people find oil in the intercooler, its just the vapor off the cam breather going through turbo and settling at the lowest point. Mine had about a T spoon full at 60k when I changed to a front mount.

Worst case could be turbo seals think you would have more than 100ml in there then.

Mine had loads in when I took it off after about 80,000km

Ah OK.  Turbo is fine so assume it could be sludge / crank vapours settling down there.  Since posting this, I have found out the engine block is likely to be a second hand fitted unit, so could well have been an implosion of previous engine and some oil got down the intercooler then.  I would have thought it would have been cleaned out if that were the case, and the fittings for the SMIC looked like original (as in rusted badly....)

It's pretty normal, and not something I would worry about unduly unless your oil level keeps dropping appreciably.

 

I've seen this before on not just Octys but other VAG cars with a SMIC. 

 

You even sometimes get oil dripping out from the joint where the lower hose fits onto the SMIC, if the clip has seen better days.

 

The simple fact of the matter is that you will always have a tiny mist of oil vapour in the intake system (from the engine breather re-circulation) and then it will collect at the lowest point in the system - i.e. here.

 

 

So don't worry!

Yep mine has never needed the oil topping up. But when I removed the SMIC I found this:

 

mine is 156.000 km ,own the the car for 5 years ....last year removed the IC and was bone dry inside   :think:

+1 All of the above.

Assuming turbo seals are ok a Oil Catch Can can help reduce oil vapour collecting in the turbo hoses.