When I fitted my FMIC recently, I was amazed that the OEM intercooler had a small puddle of black greasy oil or water in it. It literally drizzled out of the lower hoses when I disconnected them.

And this after only 16,000km from new.

Was sent a copy of Volkswagon mag by a mate, and there was a letter someone with a TD Passat who cleaned out the SMIC and found that their smoking was reduced by a large amount. There's an article on Stu's website Fabia-vrs.com - Home Page on how to do the cleaning safely. The guy in the article used petrol flushed in initially (!!!!). (Can you say "Boom!"?)

The article concluded with a comment that the chap plans to repeat the cleaning every 30,000 miles as routine, as well as an editorial comment that if you were to route the crankcase breather hose to the atmosphere you wouldn't have this problem in the first place(?).

Interesting stuff, eh?

Bas

I agree with the SMIC cleaning idea, though whether I have the get-up and go to do it is debatable. Maybe in time for summer....

Environmentally, suggesting that you should disconnect the breathers is a little irresponsible, though in performance terms, probably correct. At one point it was estimated that 30% of emissions came from "to atmo" engine breathing systems. That was way back in 50s or 60s too, when cats etc. were yet to be specified.

J.

Don't forget that recycling the crankcase fumes also has the added advantage of providing extra lubrication for the engine inlet valve stems.

I'd be interested in doing this however it looks like a fair bit of work.

It'd be great if there was a product out there that cleaned it for you without having to dismantle anything, a bit like you can get injector cleaners etc...

You can get something that will do this without you having to dismantle anything...

It's called your local indy garage.