White smoke has been coming out my exhaust intermittently over a while, i have no oil in my coolant and my oil is smooth and black as, no milky residue so both seem perfect, i am losing coolant (not much) and i am not overheating, what could be causing this as the EPA has issued me with a warning, i have performed there desired test and had someone follow me for 5kms with no sign of smoke but thought i would try to figure out what the issue is anyway, also to note i am not burning any oil
You sure it's steam? Does it smell? When the smoke comes out of the exhaust, does it dissapear fast or does it hang around?
You can have a damaged Head Gasket without oil and coolant mixing. If it's torn/corroded/buggered between the water jacket and the cylinder then you can get water leaking into the cylinder without oil mixing with it. Doesn't necessarily mean you'll overheat either. Get your coolant tested and rule it out, although I can't think of where else moisture would end up in your exhaust after the initial condensation burn off. EDIT: Unless there's water in your tank, but I gather this has been happening for a while?
Also there is no telling when it will do it, i started it up the other night and it was steaming, did it all the way home from work, first time it had done it in 2 weeks, usually a quick tap on the accelerator and its all gone, so it is very intermittent wont show up for 2 weeks and will then turn up for a 5 min drive and dissapear again
Cause thats oil...hole in a piston. Anyway, it can be deceiving. When my turbo seals went, I could have sworn it was steam or fuel, and it was doing exactly what your describing. Exhaust seals started to leak and at idle it started to occasionally smoke, steam like, then it started to become more regular and then it just became consistent. You can hide it by increasing your idle to about 1300rpm, that will flow enough to move the oil before it burns, but yeah get your coolant tested for carbon content and if that's clean then get ready to buy new turbo's, actually dude, if you coolant isn't clean then that's gonna cost a bit as well...so tighten the purse strings.
I have a small hole in my muffler which collects water - car heats up on idle i sometimes get white smoke. But this only happens if i keep the car near or on grass overnight, which i dont anymore.
X2. Mine started off slow as described and then got worse and worse til they got to the stage they are now (did you see them at Cowra???). That progressively took 2 years tho at 13.5 PSI...
