white smoke?

[BOKelley]

Originally Posted by oss117

Just for the records, water does not make smoke: it makes steam!
If it is white, has no odor and disppears quickly into nothing, it is steam

Very true, steam is not smoke and has not odor. It is a normal combustion product from burning gasoline, i.e. condensed steam can be seen as it forms in a cold exhaust system and will disappear when temperatures rise.That is why one has to differentiate between steam and burning coolant (glycol) which does produce a white, sweet smelling smoke where the sweet smell is the usual telltale sign. Burning glycol also tends to produce a lingering smoke that dissipates rather than re-evaporating as does the steam.

Brock

[chipbiii]

Originally Posted by alvav

White smoke is usually coolant; not good (head gasket). Blackish tends to be rich fuel to air mixture (most easily fixed), and blue is for burning oil (also not good).

Let's be careful about that. I took my 2004 360 in for an oil change and talked to a master mechanic who is popularly known on the North Carolin/South Carolina blog and he demonstrated to me first hand that WHITE smoke is usually OIL, not coolant. He had just finished rebuilding the engine on a BMW and he invited me to witness the engine start up process. The engine was started and immediately steams of white smoke billowed out of the pipes. While I was watching he informed me that the white smoke was a normal part of the process to burn off the new oil throughout the system and would typically continue to burn anywhere from five to fifteen minutes. After that the engine exhaust smoke disappeared and the engine was good to go.

[XENU]

White Smoke = A New Pope.

Almost always white smoke is oil.