soyabean

Hi all. Firstly let me start by saying HELLO FELLOW PORSCHE OWNERS! I finally took the plunge and bought a Silver C4S 2002 Tiptronic a couple of weeks ago. It goes without saying that I love it!!! This must be the happiest I have ever been on a cold and did I mention COLD January ever

I just wanted to ask a couple of questions. I noticed that if I go out for a spirited drive in the evenings (this tends to be quite regular at present) then the next morning when I start up my beauty then there is quite a lot of white smoke upon start up. I mean more than the usual bit. It seems to clear up after a few minutes but I wouldn't mind knowing if anyone knows what is the cause.

Also I checked all the tyre pressures but realised that the manual doesn't have the pressure for the 295 size tyres fitted to the rear which is not very helpful. The fronts are 2.5 bar but I don't know what I am supposed to inflate the rears to so I chose 38PSI to start with.

Does anyone know or could you point me in the right direction? Many thx Sel

No HTwo O

A little bit of smoke on start-up is not completely uncommon. Excessive smoke on start up may indicate a failing AOS.

38 PSI on your rear tires is not a bad start, but on the low side. OEM spec is 44 IIRC.

SSST

The occasional puff of white smoke on a cold start is normal, but it should only last for a few seconds. A few minutes seems a little long.

pongobaz

Tire pressure for a C4S with stock sized tires is:
Fr- 36psi R - 44psi

skiracer

My experience is that right after an oil change the smoke upon startup is more pronounced. On my car, if I drive casually for awhile following a spirited drive, there's hardly any start up smoke. I panicked when it first happened, but my fellow Rennlisters assure me that it's fairly normal. It hasn't gotten any worse in the past 5 years.

MiamiC70

40 psi on 295/30/18

Kazual99

First off Welcome to the board. You will find a wealth of knowledge and a good bunch of folks who love their cars. However, if you choose o post we must insist on pictures of your "Porsche". Without pics, it doesn't exist

logray

I also run 40 on 295's

Pac996

Higher pressures will get you better gas mileages. You can run lower that 40. Lower pressures warm the tires up faster.

bfutch

I heard the same things from members regarding the white smoke at start up. In a years' time coolant was leaking into the oil and caused me to replace the engine. I'm not saying the smoke was the start of my trouble, but now with this new engine I don't have smoke on start up. Just saying.

Macster

The OP's just posted his first post.

The car's new to him and he did mention cold weather. To the inexperienced the water vapor one of these engines puts out upon a cold start could scare anyone not familiar with this characteristic.

And if the water vapor is accompanied by the oil smoke many see once in a while...

But you make a valid point, there's always the exception.

Thus the OP might consider having the oil analyzed for (among other things) any presence of anti-freeze chemicals in the oil.

If the oil comes back free of these, another analysis say in another 1K or 2K miles just to be sure, might be wise.

At the same time a very careful check for any loss of coolant is called for.

Sincerely,

Macster.

bfutch

Mac, Good point about checking for coolant. Although I kept check on the stick, I never saw any signs of coolant on the dip stick. One other thing, my smoke was during the warm months.
The car ran great until one morning when I noticed I was a qt. low on oil, went to drop the oil and it came out like chocolate pudding. Also I regularly changed my oil & filter (Mobile 1) at 7k miles. I was a stickler on this, so imagine my surprise.

uberskier

Drive the car hard and then on start up you get white smoke - definitely sounding like the AOS. (Not that this has ever happened to me, cough, cough, cough).

Macster

What do you mean by "went to drop the oil"?

If you drained the oil from the engine and the engine and oil were warm to hot that oil should flow like water. Even cold the oil flows pretty darn good.

If the oil came out with the consistency of pudding and with a color that suggests the oil was mixed with water you need to have things looked into PDQ.

The 996 engine has a water cooled AOS -- as I understand it and the feature of the AOS is absent from that of the Boxster AOS with which I am more familiar -- which raises the possibility there's yet another failure mode of the AOS than can introduce coolant into the engine's crankcase an of course the engine's oil supply.

There are of course other ways for the oil to get coolant in the oil.

Regardless, though the first step is to id'ing if there is coolant in the oil.

Sincerely,

Macster.