Ian964

My car seems to be smoking randomly.

The smoke is white mostly and happens randomly. I really can't place my finger on when it smokes, its very random. It will last for probably a few seconds or up to 6-7 minutes.

Does anyone have any idea what this could be?

Boeing 717

Is it like under acceleration or just when your cruising along???? Sounds really scary but maybe its nothing serious.

JERRY

tjr

What colour is the smoke? If it's white then you may have overfilled the oil.

Ian964

The smoke is white.

It does not go out under accelleration. Just randomly.

I did get the oil changes maybe 2-3 weeks before this started to happen and I didn't drive it much bettween then. If I over filled the oil, is that harmful? What should I do now.

tjr

Yes it can be harmful. Before you do anything, get the car up to working temperature (so the oil stat opens - about 20 mins) and check the oil level on the dipstick - it should be no more than 2/3 of the way between the 2 levels. Don't rely on the oil level guage in the car (although in theory the two should correlate) but best to play safe and use the dipstick.

If it's much more then you should remove some ASAP. The easiest way to do this is use a suction pump to suck oil straight out of the oil filler neck. My mechanic has one for this specific reason. The alternative is to loosen the oil drain plug - but controlling the amount you lose then becomes a problem and you need to let the car cool down before you can do this otherwise you'll scold yourself. You've then got to get it back up to temperature before you can check the level - which makes it virtually impossible and why my mechanic uses use a suction pump.

Good luck!

Ian964

So I let the car run for 20 minutes. (I actually waited for it to start smoking). The oil was about 1/2 way between the 2 "indents". So I guess it must be something else.

whakiewes

Check for oil in your intake tubes, preferably the pipe going from the turbo to the intercooler. Often as turbo seals go bad they start to leak a little oil into the pipes which is then burnt. Sometimes more than other times. Since your car is a turbo, a little oil smoke isn't too terribly bad. If its puking white smoke, then I would definantly take it in and have a specialist check it out.

Wes

Luke

Sounds like valve stem seals are a posibility.

tjr

What is the car's mileage? Has it been re-built recently?

whakiewes

Valve stems are a possibility, but the typical sign of those failing is smoke upon start up then fading off as the engine warms. The reason for this is the cracks in the seals contract when the engine cools so oil left in the head seeps into the combustion chamber. Typically only smokes for a matter of a few seconds, not 6-7 minutes. I still vote turbo seals going back which is puking oil into the intake tract. If they were just on the edge of going it would only smoke periodically whenever the turbo gets just right. Since the car cools with oil and not water, there could be any number of seals internally going bad that would typically produce a blueish coolant type smoke, but given the air-cooled engine this wouldn't occur.

Wes

911addict

Hey Ian,
Nice to see you posting, I read some of your old threads when you were new to 965 ownership.
Hope its nothing serious.

Ian964

911addict, thanks

I actually have not driven my car much at all in the last 2 years . I went to law school and got married, that took up the majority of my time.

The car has 47,000 miles. It had the 45,000 mile service 2 years ago and everything checked out fine. So i've only put 2,000 miles on it in the last 2 years. Hopefully its not a big deal, because I would really like to start driving it again this summer.

Turbohead

Sounds like turbo seasl are blown...Here is your chance to upgrade the turbo.