antcee

Hi all,
I have had my 96 993TT for 2 months now. It has 25k miles on it now. It had 21k miles when I bought it, and has been running great. The car is in mint condition, but just recently started smoking on start up, for about 3-5 seconds and smells like there is some burning oil in the garage after coming home from a drive. I recently noted some small oil spots on the garage floor, apparently coming from the engine on the driver's side. Does anyone have any ideas what could be causing this? Thank you in advance.
Tony

viperbob

Sounds like you have two differenet things happening here. 1) Smoke on startup. Tends to be rather common especially if oil overfilled, or the phase of the moon is in line with Venus. What tail pipe is it coming out? Did you have the oil changed recently? Do a search here for smoke / startup / etc.

2) Oil Burning Smell and drops. I'd say you have a leak (derrr). Could be a number of things including valve cover gaskets, oil tubes, and a host of other little things. Take it to someone that can put it on a lift and diagnose the problem.

antcee

Thanks Bob for your input. The smoke seems to be coming out of the tailpipe on the passenger side. The oil was changed about 2k miles ago by a dealer. I double checked that it wasn't overfilled at that time. It started smoking about a week ago, just a little bit. I noticed it was a quart low a few days ago, and added oil, being careful not to overfill. Added it with motor idling while warm and checking the dipstick periodically. The smoking was still the same for the first couple days but has progressively gotten worse. (ie. the garage filled with smoke on my last start-up) Performance appears to be unchanged. I just hope it's not in need of a major fix.

Jeff 993TT

In addition to what Bob, said, this link may be helpful for you:

http://www.993faq.com/archives/cat_engine.html#000310

Let us know "drivers" side you are referring to ( left or right of the car )

antcee

I'm in the US, so the driver's side is on the left. The smoke is coming out of the tailpipe on the right side of the car, when standing behind the car and facing forward. The oil drops are on the left side. Thanks for the link.

antcee

After reading that link www.993faq.com it sounds like I overfilled it since it says there to just fill it to the "lowest" twisted mark on the dipstick. I filled it to the highest twisted mark. I was told that the oil level gauge should move to about the 3 o'clock position when at idle, and the engine is warm and on level ground. Before adding that quart, it was staying in the red at idle and below the lowest twisted mark. Should I drain out a little oil? Is this causing harm to anything? Thanks.
Tony

Carrera GT

Take it to a 993 Turbo expert. Worst case, take it to a dealer. This sounds like a little bit more than over-filling.

There's no real harm in over-filling. If you have a fluid extractor, it's okay to suck out a little. But that's for someone familiar with the car. I'd take it to an expert and make sure you don't have an oil return line leaking from the driver side turbo.

Jeff 993TT

I had a smoking problem due to overfilling recently and found that draining both the turbo oil tanks drains about 1/2 a quart total. And the best part is that you can access those 2 tanks easily and they only drain 1/4 quart each.

This is a good trick for me, since I always seem to overfill the oil.

antcee

Thanks for the input. The car is in the shop and being looked at. I'll let you know what they find. Of course, when they started it after it had been parked for about 1 hour, there was little for no smoke. Oh well.

Jeff 993TT

yup, that's the nature of the problem. I haven't figured out what to do to make it consistencly smoke. My car will be working fine for a few weeks, then BAM, tons of white smoke.

Let us know what you find out...

antcee

Here's the update on the smoking problem. The dealer's mechanic says the secondary oil filter hose going to the intercooler is leaking and oil is getting into the intake. I got this info second hand via the service manager so I hope this makes sense. Thanks for everyone's input.