I have a 91 Legacy wagon that smokes like crazy. I bought this car a few months ago and while test driving it it ran fine, no smoke at all in the 20 min I drove it. On the way home, 30 min later it started smoking a little, and got worse the rest of the way home. Now when I start it, just idleing in the driveway it can smoke out the neighbourhood.

 

I have checked the pcv, it's fine, no oil anywhere in the lines.

 

I pulled the plugs and the left front cylinder is the one burning oil, it's the only plug that came out black.

 

First thing I tried was changing the valve seals, didn't help.

 

I checked the compression, got 200 on 3 cyl, 191 on the left front.

 

Could it be rings? This car has 170k on it, but from what I have read, it should go alot farther. It runs fine except for the smoke.

 

Any suggestions on what to check?

 

Thanks.

Sadly, it sounds like the rings in that cylinder are shot.

 

Now, the compression only seems a little low in that cylinder, the oil in that cylinder is most likely giving you a higher than actual reading just because the oil is helping to seal the gap or crack or whatever the case is.

 

You need to get a "leak-down tester", the standard compression test is not going to help you much here. Check out this link:

 

http://vmaxoutlaw.com/tech/leakdown_tester.htm

 

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