Tdi popped and puking oil out exhaust

Hello, I'm a new tdi owner of a 2011 golf 6 speed, for about 6 months now.
It was a dealer buy back, and received all the required modifications to meet California smog certification, including a new timing belt, and a new DPF. This was done at about 120k.
Car has run like a champ. Now has 165k. On entering the freeway two days ago during acceleration it popped and loss power, I limped along shoulder for about 2 miles to next exit with smoke rolling out exhaust. No warning lights ever appeared. Turned off and called AAA. While waiting 4 hours for a tow back to my house 80 miles away. I did the basic inspections no fluids underneath, but was shocked to see no oil showing on dip stick, removed oil fill cap and noticed a small amount of milky on bottom of cap. Coolant is still full. Stuck finger into exhaust pipe and found where it all went.
After reading some info I'm lead to believe that the turbo is the cause.
I do all the regular maintaince, on our vehicles, changing oil, fuel filters, etc, also play with muscle cars, so am capable of doing the repair.
Any guidance or advice from anyone more knowledgeable with this motor would be appreciated.

If it were mine I would top it with oil to see how low it is and then do a compression test

i would not even crank it over until you know your A not going to hydrolock it and B it is not hitting anything.
pull off the pipe for the intercooler input. if its FULL of oil, well your turbo is shot. some oil is OK
Rotate the crank BY HAND 4 full turns if nothing holds you back then do a visual inspection on the cam and lifters. then a compression test, and leak down test. Also testing the coolant visually for oil or soot

Intercooler line is full of oil. Crank still rotates manually. Why would bottom of oil cap have small amount of moisture appearing milky? Oil inside IC line is black.

your turbo died. more specifically the journal bearing inside has failed and is spewing oil into the cars intercooling system and WILL LEAD TO A RUNAWAY if you decide to drive or start it again with the turbo connected or any of the boost lines. if you must start it to test things, disconnect the boost line to the intake so you dont runaway. been there, done that.
you may have blown a head gasket instead , that might explain the milky oil.
You want to do a leak down test at 150PSI on all 4.

now dont confuse a small amount of oil to be bad, maybe a few teaspoons worth that could drain out, but more than that and its probably the turbo or you blow your rings or something and its coming out though the CCV.
you have much more testing to do before you start to throw parts at it.

compression test 3 times dry, and 3 times with a shot of oil on the rings, if numbers are relatively good, move to a leak down test and test the coolant for oil or soot.

Milky reside is normal condensation, particularly if the car has not been on the highway for a while.

No oil in the crankcase and an intercooler or exhaust full of oil is most likely a turbo shaft that let go while accelerating, allowing liquid oil to be injecting into the intake, the exhaust, or both.

Pulling the glowplugs, ejecting any remaining oil with the starter, and then a compression test are the usual next steps to see if any rods got bent due to hydrolock.

Lots of oil in IC line. Will the oil burn out of DPF, catalytic, and muffler? How to go about cleaning the oil from IC?

unlook the boost line fromt he turbo and from the intake manifold
dump a half cup of cascade powder dish soap and fill with hot water, let it soak for a few minutes and then flush it out with clean water, hook up a shopvac to the boost pipes and suck out all you can, drain it from the intercooler connection and hook up the turbo side ONLY, leaving the intake side open. Run the car for a few minutes and let all the water dry up as best as possible, then connect the boost line to the intake afte ryou have insured all the main bits of water are gone and let it idle for 10 minutes.

do not use solvents, then can cause a runaway effect for a small time and can over rev the engine.

Thanks for all the info. Back to running '03 diesel Ram for a while. Your very knowledgeable, are you in Ca.? Where should I go to get the Turbo? Should I go stock, or get a bigger or better one? Any upgrades that can be done to prevent this from happening again? Email is: Dave@4trees.co

our locations are in the member details on the left of the screen.
dont bother with bigger turbo unless your going to build a power goal. build exactly what your aiming for and dont do the " will be better if i do it now for upgrades later"
im not big into your car or much past 2005. talk to a tunner. check out KermaTDI, Malone tuning, and much much more.

Is there a reason why it wouldn't be covered under the warranty?
https://www.vwdiesellookup.com/pdf/VWCourtSettlement_Emissions_Disclosure_Gen1_Manual_Final.pdf
If not I have some turbos here I would like to move out. https://www.metalmanparts.com/product.sc?productId=848&categoryId=88

1bean, where-abouts are you in our 800 mile long state?
From your description, it sounds like you may have avoided a runaway which is good.
But any oil in the combustion chamber is not good. Many turbo failures dump oil into
the exhaust and spare the intake so first simply drain the pressure side of the intake
and I/C and see how much is actually there. This area always has some oil present.
See what comes out of the glow plug holes by covering them with a rag and cranking.
Although if you drove another 2 miles I wouldn't expect to find much if any.
Buy or borrow a diesel compression gauge and report the results back here.

X2 on Metalman's comment.

If this TDI was fixed by VW, it should be covered by the extended emissions warranty which specifically covers the turbo.

OP: why haven't you taken it to the VW dealer?

Turbo shat the bed, VW will cover it. Happened to my friends CR, VW covered it and paid for a rental car while it was being repaired.

Better hope you've got impeccable oil change / maintenance records if your'e going to be seeking warranty.

Opened lower IC line at hose clamp. About 1 qt of black oil drained into bucket. No signs of moisture. That's all I have done. Im located close to Modesto. I have all paper work that has been done, but purchased from private, who purchased from Dealer. I will call local vw and see if they cover?

Good idea. Let us know.

Shouldn't matter where you purchased from, the extended emissions warranty is transferable to subsequent owners as long as the fix was done.

If local dealer waffles, you need to reach out to corporate. VWoA should make sure to cover it.

Make sure you have the silver sticker on the bottom of the hood indicating the fix was done.

X3 What Metal Man said...

For a measly $100, we do a pre-purchase inspection. It is very seldom that we don't find WAY more than $100 wrong with the vehicle.

More than likely this is something that would have likely shown up with inspection. We have found this issue with turbo on one of the re-released cars. Unfortunately, we know darn well that that particular car was given it's check list. They checked everything on the list and then went to find the car the check list belonged to... Oh yeah, that helps.

To protect yourself, you had better be able to show oil change, with the correct oil. Otherwise, you could be on the hook for repairs. For future reference, when a turbo pops, you STOP, QUICKLY. DO NOT START UNTIL CONFIRMED and REPAIRED. You can wreck the rest of the engine by running it out of oil.

Thanks for everyone's comments and advice.
I did take to VW service and it was determined there was evidence that the turbo went out and then had internal damage, bending rods in #2 and #3 hole. I was surprised to hear that the first steps from service tech was to install 3 quarts of oil and try and start. Then open glow plugs to see if oil pumped out? I told them that I had already discovered oil in lower IC line, but was told that was the procedure to follow from VW.
After giving them service records and basic maintaince records, showing receipts of oil and filters from fuel and air, they told me that I was indeed covered through the emissions warranty that went with this car until 2023 or 180k.
VW is providing a new long block and Turbo. Also gave me a loaner 2019 Jetta to use until all work is completed!
Today was first day I drove to work in the Jetta. Was very impressed with the comfort, power and fuel mileage from that little turbo gas 1.4. Appears that it may get better than 40 mpg on freeway!

That is about the best outcome for your situation.

Agreed, that's a good ending to what started out as a sad, scary story.

All the best.

Nice.