Baggerdude

My 2009 Turbo has about 13K miles on it.

I have noticed that occasionally I get a great deal of white smoke out the exhaust when I start it up in the garage. Not often ... but, maybe once a week (?) ... and eventually, I get an "low oil" message on the dash.

I typically toss in just under a quart. I've done this 2-3 times since I've had the car. So, every 3 - 4 thousand miles?

Why is the car using oil ... or blowing it out the rear of the car? Not a big deal, but disconcerting.

Steamboat

White smoke is normal.....warning lights, not so much. Please check and top off your oil level more often. Nothing to worry about......best,

Baggerdude

Thanx, man .... I know that I should look at the oil level more frequently, but I'm surprised that the car uses/blow ANY oil.

Only seem to happen when the car sits for a day or two.

Why would this happen?

Steamboat

Umm, why does the dog lick.......? No, seriously, oil consumption in 911's is all over the map. Some use a lot, others very little. No worries as long as you stay on top of it. I've heard too may explanations about why there's white smoke to even have a plausible explanation. Sorry.

rijowysock

whenever i let my 911 sit i would get more white smoke on startup... someone explained it in detail to me one time but i forgot.

basically oil consumption is normal.... on the 09TT (engine like 08- NA vehicles) the oil reading is very finicky, come home from a drive, turn the car off... wait 5-10 minutes and then go out and check it.. thats the most accurate way (level surface)

the DFI engines read a little better.. but do the above and you'll get a perfect reading every time.

non DFI i burnt 1qt every 1200 miles
DFI i burnt 1qt every 600 miles
both N.A so i would expect FI to be more.

Baggerdude

My TT doesn't burn all that much oil. About 3/4 quart in ~2500-3000 miles.

Could be that we rev the cars more than a Prius, too. But, the white smoke must be some oil is leaking down into the cylinders for some reason.

jhbrennan

White smoke on startup is typical with the boxer engine - there have been lots of posts about this. It only occurs with mine (2008 TT) when I start the engine cold, reposition it it in the garage and shut down after about 30 seconds. If I start it up after about an hour I'll always get a plume of white smoke.

Terry Adams

At 50K miles, burn 1 qt per nine thousand miles.
White smoke on startup about once a week or 2 weeks, depends.
I don't even pay attention to it any more.
Happened for the last 350K miles, 20 years and 3 Porsches.

PAULUNM

The longer you let the motor cool down at idle before shutting it down, the less smoke at the next startup- in my experience...

DJ23

Condensation builds up after letting the car sit for a while. A small amout of white smoke isn't a big deal. No need to worry.

Jay

jhbrennan

For those who have experienced this, it doesn't appear to be condensation and it is by no means a small amount of white smoke. It's a random occurrence and really doesn't matter if car was sitting for a while or not.

JB 911

It may not be 'abnormal' or any big 'worry' but for $165k+ it is certainly not 'right' either.

Macster

Well, the smoking issue has been I think covered. I can only add, well, repeat, that it appears to be normal. But I want to stress this is the case only with the absence of other signs of engine distress.

If the smoking is just upon engine start -- after the car/engine has sat a while unused/unstarted -- if the smoking is short lived and does not occur any other other time, if the check engine light or any other warning light doesn't come, the smoking symptom is normal.

There are things you can do the possibly minimize the frequency and severity of the symptom.

What I wanted to touch upon is I fail to understand why wait until the low oil level warning light comes on to add oil? I can't put my hands on it but somewhere there's a caveat against relying upon the low oil level light as a trigger point to add oil.

The oil level should be monitored regularly -- how regularly depends upon the rate at which the engine consumes oil -- and oil added *before* the low oil level warning light comes on.

Sincerely,

Macster.

slawus

BINGO ! my Friend

Baggerdude

I've tho't about this for a couple days.

I think it has to do with the Boxser engine design and that horizontally laid out motors will allow for oil leak down. And, when you fire it up ... the engine burns it off.

I don't think it has anything to do with how long the car 'sits'. I had it twice in 2days .... then nothing for a week or so.

Hence, the quart added incrementally along the waiting for service tag to appear.

JMO ... no science, just guessing.