mendelo

So here's the situation. I have a '05 Allroad, with about 80,000 miles on it. I don't have a lot of history on the car but the overall condition and maintenance tells me it was reasonably well looked after by the previous owners.

A week ago I noticed some oil on the floor in the garage. The belly pans are off so I jacked the car up to have a look. The left (driver's side) of the engine is liberally covered in oil, down to the oil pan, hoses etc. There is none coming from the head gasket, it's lower down and there is absolutely no smoke or burning oil smell. The exact location of the leak remained a mystery.

Today I took it to my independant mechanic whom I trust reasonably well. The verdict was the car needs two new turbos (well, one specifically but might as well replace both if you're in there, which I guess I must concur with). The reason for this diagnosis was there there was a fair amount of oil in the boost tube on the drivers side and almost none on the passengers side. Therefore the turbo is leaking internally.

If the turbo's need replacing, then fine, they need replacing, but I am not 100% convinced. So my questions are (and I know I should have posed them to the mechanic but that can wait):

If the turbo is leaking internally (i.e into the boost tubes) why is there oil all over the lower left side of the engine?

The turbo is not making any additional noise (i.e drill sound). They are both quiet to the point I never hear them and provide excellent boost. Would this be expected in a turbo leaking internally?

The turbo is not burning any oil (ie not leaking into the exhaust) and there is no oily residue in the tail pipe.Therefore it appears to be leaking internally only into the intake tract. Would this also be pointing to a failing turbo?

What other things could mimic or cause oil to appear in the boost tubes.

I do know that the leak appeared immediately after I overfilled the car with oil. Over the course of the year's ownership I have watched the mark on the dipstick slowly progress from full to the middle to the Add position. I thought this was pretty good oil consumption for a whole year of regular use. Without really checking (my manual is in French) when the dispstick finally hit the Add mark, I poured in a litre of synthetic.Big mistake. Next time I checked I realized I was way over the full mark. And I noticed the oil leak. So..long story short.. could overfilling cause a pressure situation that would dump oil say through the PCV valve into the driver's side boost tube?

What I am looking for is some alternate possibilities or suggestions I can explore given my relatively limited wrenching skills. Obviously I don't want to spend the money on new turbos but I will if that's truly the cause. I just want to make sure that really is the problem before I commit.

Despite the leak being there for a couple of weeks, the oil consumption is still minimal.

GTA_Driver

You probably have leaky valvle cover gasket on the driver's side. Oil on the driver's side turbo is common since that's where the PCV system dumps oil vapours.

GTA_Driver

Meant oil in the driver's side boost tube.

Prospeeder

Rear cam plugs or chain tensioner on that side. It always always looks just like turbo because thats all you can see. Do Valve covers, chain tensioners, rear cam plugs and i bet it will solve the leak.