I have had a boost leak for a while which I repaired with better quality couplers. Once the repair was made, I was running about 6 lbs of boost. After a couple of weeks, the car started to smoke badly when at idle. I read the thread about adding a restrictor which I had not done and had a .065 restrictor added to the tee line. The car still smoked a lot at idle so I took it to a shop to remove the turbo and send out for rebuild. The shop sent the turbo to a shop that specializes in turbo rebuilds - Forced Performance in Texas. I spoke to the shop today and the tech told me that all the internals were in spec including the shaft play. He did say there had been some movement where the turbo wheel has removed some material on the housing but seems ok. ? He told me the seals were fine and everything was within spec and he would not spend the $4oo to rebuild if it were his turbo. He said it was getting to much oil pressure and a smaller restrictor ~ 050 should help. I had him send it back to the shop to reinstall. Does this explanation sound like it makes sense or was he jerking me off ?
It will be reinstalled and in by the end of this week with the 050 restrictor and ultimately I will see if it still smokes.

 

is it still smoking?

 

I had the same problem on my 2001 jetta 1.8T....VW replaced the turbo, seal problem so some oil was burning into the exhaust side = smoke.

 

It has been about 1 month since turbo was reinstalled after serious smoking. The turbo was not rebuilt, I was told it was still within specs, but I had a 0.050 restrictor intstalled and absolutely no smoking - while still running 6-7 lbs of boost.