Exhaust Smoke Question

[Rail26]

Could there be a better view? Let me set the backdrop...Foggy London morning after a breakfast of tea and blood sausage...a dashing figure in his James Bond 3 piece suit walks out to his sports car. With one turn of the key, deep growl and puff of smoke, he's off to Scotland Yard for another boring day of saving the world.

I would love to live in London for a year.

[Scotty_Boxter_S]

I have only had my Boxter S for 2 days, yesterday when I was out and about, I ran it for about 30 mins to let it heat up, then started to give it some boot, to my dismay when I passed a Car there was a large white cloud of smoke once I eased off the accelorator.

what could cause this??

the car has barely been used for 1 year, has 37,000 miles and seems to run fine apart from the worrying smoke.

thanks
Scott.

[986Jim]

Hi Scott. It's a Boxster not a Boxter hahaha. Thats ok, I did that too when I first bought it. The name is a combination of Boxer engine style and Roadster layout so Box and ster together for the name..

Anyway are you getting this smoke when the car is still cold? or is this after it's fully warmed up and you let off the gas and see the white cloud? If you can see it in your rear view, it's a lot of smoke thats comin out.

Be sure, that it's white and not grey. Grey smoke is unburnt fuel that comes out when you suddenly let off the gas and full combustion doesn't complete or when your hard on the gas and it hasn't been tromped on in a while they run rich.

[Scotty_Boxter_S]

Hi Jim,

the car had been run for about 80 min's, I had stopped at mcdonalds for about 20 mins, but the temp gauge was at its normal. It has happened again today, but not nearly so bad, it does seem to be when I am letting off the juice after a decent blast.

Initially I was really shocked, but the performance of the car is fine? there is no "Burning Oil smell" so your suggestion seems feasible.

it is hard to say "white or grey" I will keep a close eye out for the colour tomorrow.

My main concern was if it is white smoke, that generally means head gasket gone or water in the oil doesn't it?

thanks

[986Jim]

Burning coolant is white, but it's like "James Bond smoke screen white" as in looks like a big puffy cloud is following your car that you can't see through. If it's only a bit and whiteish, then it's grey and unburnt gasoline. Thats part of the fun tho, spitting unbunt gas on your opponent...

[Scotty_Boxter_S]

thanks for the info Guys,

basically the worst time this happened it looked like a white cloud about 6 meters radius that spat out the back and "my opponent" had to drive through it lol it looked like smoke machine smoke from a night club.

if it is coolant, does that mean there is something wrong? if so, what can cause the coolant to burn?

like i said, this car has barely been used in anger for about one year, could this be a major contributing factor?

[986Jim]

if it's smoke machine white then thats cooland burning. There are many things that can lead to coolant burning but a poped headgasket is generally the most common. The easiest way to detect is to do a compression test, tho that doesn't always uncover the problem.

Pull out your plugs and look at them to see if any are 'wet' with coolant. Coolant is a sealed system so it shouldn't go anywhere, is yours low?