Thoughts on this spark plug number 1?  Does it look normal/healthy?

All the other plugs look almost identical and as upload size is limited I just attached pic of 1 at some different viewing angles.

Car has been driving me mad recently.  Out of nowhere it has suddenly decided to smoke quite badly.. but only when it is sitting idling in traffic or at traffic lights.  The smell is a typical smokey smell, kind of a rich smell I think.  It is grey/blueish in colour and lingers a bit in the air.. I was expecting to find the spark plugs coated with lots of oil and in bad shape because I thought my engine was burning oil.  I took the plugs out and was surprised to see they do not look bad at all, considering they are years old now.  I replaced the PCV valve with a brand new one and I have cleaned out all the vacuum hoses because they were quite gunked up with a mix of oil and water.  I have also ordered a new hockey puck valve which I haven`t replaced yet as it hasn`t arrived in the post.

 

I checked oil dipstick and the oil level is full, not using any coolant either, that is at a good level.  Any ideas?  I thought maybe a turbo seal as my next investigation.   Car seems to boost ok and doesn`t really feel down on power.  Would any of the other engine sensors cause smoking at idle without triggering any fault codes on the dash, like a faulty CTS or faulty o2 or MAF?  I have scanned the car and no error codes were found.. apart from a voltage low on terminal 30 code.

 

Samuel

 

I also looked down spark plugs holes and tops of all pistons are black.  Is this normal?  Car is at 134,000 miles.

Depending on the age of the plug I'd say it's not too bad. Looks like there is a little blow by with the deposit on the thread but again, it looks okay. Carbon build up on the crown of the piston is a natural thing, try a few doses of Redex, perhaps a few tanks of Shell fuel (don't know what you usually run). You're smokey exhaust may be something as simple as hardened valve stem seals.

Thanks for the reply

The plugs are a just over a year old now I would say.  I always use shell high octane stuff as that's what I had my car mapped on.  I did discover the other day that my oil level was roughly 5mm over the max point on the dipstick.  So I took some oil out lastnight to get it down to the max mark.  Still smoking this morning when I was parked up at work...  unless there is still oil in the exhaust that will burn off I guess it must be the turbo seals leaking?  Are there any tests I can do on the turbo without stripping it down?  like would it affect boost readings if the turbo had a leaking seal exhaust side? 

I did also think about maybe removing my turbo silicone intake pipe and having a nose at that side of the turbo to see if I can find any oil leaking at the intake side or any play in the shaft etc, its just a bit of a pain getting down to the turbo without actually removing it off the engine.   There is oil in my intercooler piping, but I was told by a friend this is quite common for a petrol turbo engine anyway.

Edited 8 November, 20187 yr by sammyhale30

Although I've had my car from new, September 2005, Turbo side of things is still a black art to me. . The articles that I've seen, mainly on TV, that have looked at turbos always seem to have the unit on the workbench. Some one else may be more informative.

My first cambelt service, some time back now, I noticed oil in my intercooler but as you mentioned this is normal for these engines and not been a major concern to me.