White Smoke?

[Danj]

Hi all just a small question, had my legnum for about a month now, on start up i get a lot of white smoke when i accelerate. This started as a little smoke but now seems to be getting more and more as time goes on - any ideas as to what thi may be?

[WildCards]

I'd imagine most of it is condensation. Until the engine warms up properly you'll suffer a little white smoke. It's when it's blue you need to worry.

[Nick Mann]

Common thing - don't worry about it.

As above, blue is the time to raise an eyebrow!

[Davezj]

yep i had this, but i was like you stated small amount and got more and more.

i didn't twig that it was getting worse as we got further in to winter, lots of moist air about, it was always got worse after it rained as well.

however mine was quite extreme white smoke for about 1-2min after stating the car and driving off. when you put you foot down and the engine gets loaded up then it really came out. but was partly my fault as i have a 5" exhaust opening at the back and i think it cind of fills with water when it rains.

i went to the extent of thinking it was my head gasket leaking water into the cylinders. but that was not the case.
i had a leaking water power so i was doing the full cam belt and other belts change with all idoler and tentioner pullies. so i got them to change the head gasket and skim the heads. while it was off.
They told me after there was no sign of any kind of leak from the heads, but once they were off it was only £30 to get them skimmed so that was not a big deal.

tjust to put it in to context, the smoke was that bad out of the back that you could not see the car right behind you.

this year it is exactly the same. i made this costly mistake, costly because the labour charge for the heads was high. please don't make the same mistake.

if you are still worried then get a sniff test done of the cooling system water to check for exhaust gases in it.

hope this helps.

dave

[Dan_G]

I've had massive amounts of water vapour from all my large displacement 6-8 cylinder engine cars in the winter particularly when the engine/exhaust are cold...

probably because with a big engine you are pushing a larger volume of gas out the tailpipe compared, for example to a 1.4 litre astra with a 1" exhaust pipe so it does'nt look so bad...

[bradc]

it's fun with my car and the twin pipes, you basically cover the car behind you every time :)

[Fred]

you shouldnt be pushing your car that hard while cold anyways..