Smoke colors

[g0tEclipseD]

In general, what do different color smokes tell you?

White? Black?Blue? etc.

I sometimes get a small puff of white smoke. Dont know what it means?

 

[doodie]

White = either coolant or condensation up your tailpipe.
Blue = burning oil
Black = running rich, unburnt gas

I wouldn't worry about a little puff of smoke at idle in cool weather.

 

[cuttheduck]

Yah, iv'e heard of blue smoke when seals on the turbo go bad hence burning oil. I remeber when I had a blown headgasket on my other car and coolant was leaking in it would release enough white smoke to cover a block. So a lil white smoke is nothing, espcially in cool weather

 

[chaggard27]

Also it can be white smoke if there is oil leaking into the intake pipes to your turbo...like if you have blown the turbo seals. This is what happened to my 3000GT...not a good sign either. So it depends...closer examination should help

 

[IEdroStarI]

i've heard that if you use fully synthetic oil in your motor, your smoke will pop white rather than blue when you have some kind of oil leak. the valve seals to my head are starting to go bad so at an idle they seem to let a little bit of oil get by and make a little poof of white smoke come out when i take off. do you know when you have the poof?