white smoke???

[Lenn620]

hey guys, i just received disturbing news from the tech working on my 91 tsi awd... its pouring white smoke out of the exhaust when driving and not when idling. i thought the headgasket was blown but according to him, its not. timing belt is new as are the tensioners, but he bound the balance shaft belt broken and laying in the bottom of the timing belt cover. can this cause the smoke if the balance shaft is not moving, or what else can it possibly be??? PLEASE help!! thanks

 

[Twizzle]

learn to use the search function.

 

[laserspeeddemon]

well the search function won't give him the answer like he wanted to.

White smoke is only caused by water in the combustion chamber, so get a metal head gasket from Mitsubishi and ARP head studs. Then re-do you timing belt. And do not take your car to the same mechanic, take it to someone different and see what he says. Its called a second opinion and its a good way to keep mechanics honest.

one final note: DO NOT DRIVE THE CAR!!! Don't even start it, unless you want to buy another motor.

 

[dfgu]

I'm having the same problem as you.. Is you car heating up? have you done a compression test? If you car isn't heating up and your compression test is normal, then it could be the turbo housing... There can be a hairline crack in there that you dont see that is causing the fluid to be buring out the exhaust...

I'm going to change my turbo within the next few weeks and see what happens..
I have no performace losses or anything.. everything still runs great except the white smoke..

 

[Lenn620]

in reguards to performance loss, none is evident. it has a big 16g so it pulls its ass off, but it smokes like a chimony. LASERSPEEDDEMON: i want to take the car to another tech but the car is about 35 minutes from me and it has the head ripped off. i have not had the compression checked but it may be losing compression at idle because when the engine gets warmed up, the idle fluctuates badly like it has a vacuum leak. also at idle it sounds like a subaru wrx, (if you can imagine that), a real thub thub thub sound. but when driving it feels normal, but no overheating is evident in the 5 miles ive driven it since i got it. any more ideas anybody

 

[luv2rallye]

White smoke in exhaust is always either coolant leaking into cylinders (head gasket break) OR turbo coolant seals bad. Compression test time.

 

[laserspeeddemon]

in reguards to performance loss, none is evident. it has a big 16g so it pulls its ass off, but it smokes like a chimony. LASERSPEEDDEMON: i want to take the car to another tech but the car is about 35 minutes from me and it has the head ripped off. i have not had the compression checked but it may be losing compression at idle because when the engine gets warmed up, the idle fluctuates badly like it has a vacuum leak. also at idle it sounds like a subaru wrx, (if you can imagine that), a real thub thub thub sound. but when driving it feels normal, but no overheating is evident in the 5 miles ive driven it since i got it. any more ideas anybody

Yea, take it to another mechanic! If you can not do the work yourself, then get mulitple opioions and NEVER take your car 35 min away from you.

 

[asexton6969]

My car blows white smoke like no other. It purs like a kitten but it just smokes. We changed the turbo (massive shaft play) and there was oil in the inlet and also in the IC. Cleaned that out and like i said changed the turbo. Still does the same thing. Messed with the PCV Valve and it didnt smoke as bad. O yea before we changed the turbo we changed the HG and had the head checked no problems. What could it be?

 

[laserspeeddemon]

whats your compression look like?

 

[JaxTalonTSi]

I'm having a similar problem.

So far I've replaced the water pump, timing and balancer shaft belts, drive belts, spark plugs, valve cover gasket, ect.

Car started smoking. Not really off idle, but under load or heavy acelleration. Checked intercooler lines. Oil in them. Replaced turbo with EVOIII big 16g. Still smokes. Did a compression test, wasn't too bad, none were under 135psi, all 4 ranged from 135psi to 145psi. Do you guys think it's valve seals? I heard they're a pain to change with the head on, I was just going to take the head off, and do the seals with the head off, and while I'm at it, delete my balance shafts and change my head gasket. What do you guys think?

 

[JaxTalonTSi]

Head is probably warped.

Think so? I would think engine performance would be really noticable if that was the case. But it is somthing to look into.

 

[tbTalonES94]

I fixed the problem. I convinced my mechanically inclined father that all we needed to do was drive it. Well we drive it and yep sure enough i was right. Fixed my smoking problem.