Hey Gang, Haven't been here in a while because the Kitty has been running fine with no issues. 2003 S-Type 4.2 base, 165,000 miles, owner since 2010, 5w-20 Mobile 1 oil.
I started it one morning a few weeks ago and got a plume of blue smoke that covered the car and carried on across my front yard into the street....I was so embarrassed, never revved it....just from turning the key and it firing up.
I went down the street to do some shopping and running around and no more smoke till I drove to Ohio for Thanksgiving last Wednesday, 450miles, not trailing any smoke for entire trip until I stopped for about 20min in one store, went to another store for 5min, started up and everything was fine. When I left that store and got in line for the light, when I took off from the light from a light, I filled the entire intersection with blue smoke, I mean COVERED IT!! Going down the street from light to light no smoke. Accelerated hard getting on the highway and no smoke.
So it's not constantly smoking. Yesterday on the highway coming home here was an instance where I had to decelerate then get back on the throttle and got a puff but that was about it. I got home yesterday from Ohio and it sits and purrs like a kitten, smooth idle but I was down over a quart of oil but no blue smoke from the pipes. I have good vacuum in the block, tested it by removing the oil filler cap while running, the PCV valve is new August 1st (Beck Arnley) Any ideas? Cam timing solenoids going bad? I did notice is was a little sluggish accelerating off cruise control if I had to pick it up a bit. Thanking everyone ahead of time for any thoughts on the matter. All input is greatly appreciated.

 

Blue or gray smoke means that there is likely an oil leak to the effect that you Jag is actually BURNING oil.
Did you check, if you engine oil level is getting lower and lower?
There are various ways of getting oil into the combustion chamber, but the most likely one is probably a damaged head-gasket.

Other than that: I dare say that you are using the wrong engine oil...: Correct is 5W-30, better is 5W-40.

 

Thanks for the reply, much appreciated. I've only used Mobile1 5w-30 since I've owned the car 10-2010. The engine right now is not showing visual sign of burning oil. I'm retired now so I don't use it every day but so far I see no blue smoke at all. I replaced the PCV valve in August of this year so I'm kinda leaning that way since the smoke is intermittent, maybe the diaphragm is hanging up. I'll definitely keep an eye on oil level, it's topped off right now, I did have to add some after my trip. When the weather cooperates I'll do a compression test and eyeball the sparkplugs at the same time. Thanks Again

 

I will elaborate a bit on what I wrote before, when I mentioned that you could be "burning" oil.
What they means is that there could be internal damage of the head gasket, which allows the oil from channels inside of the wall of the engine to escape into the combustion chambers so that it gets burned there together with the petrol and create the blue/gray smoke. The oil needs time to make its way thru the damaged head gasket to get into the combustion chamber. If you drive less now, there is more time for the oil to wander over. Hence, maybe the problem is not that new, but was not that visible, as there was less time (i.e. less oil in the combustion chamber) before and hence not that much smoke.
A "visual sign" of burning oil is that smoke, the would not be any visual sign on the engine itself.

"Some" smoke may be normal. I am writing above what could be the reason for excessive blue/gray smoke.

 

So IF this is the case the best way to diagnose is excessive oil consumption and not necessarily the visual of blue smoke? If so would a compression test possibly be in order as I previously spoke of? The engine has always been a miser on oil when it comes to consumption so I'll have a pretty good idea of what's abnormal use. Thanks

 

> So IF this is the case the best way to diagnose is excessive oil consumption and not necessarily the visual of blue smoke?
I'd say oil consumption (note that a car does normally not "consume" oil at all) AND that smoke are the indicators.

I can't tell you about compression tests. I never did one.

 

Given the mileage on your vehicle, I personally would not suspect worn rings just yet, especially if the car has been well maintained. Accelerating away from a stop light tends to create more engine vacuum. which is apparently sucking oil into the combustion chambers from somewhere.

I am not making a Jaguar specific observation here and perhaps one of our resident techs can chime in here, but PCV could be a suspect. I have not heard reports of this, but on other non-Jaguar engines, valve stem seals can also create the symptoms you describe.

 

@ Cobbler: I have another idea, as to why there could be blue smoke, as I am digging deeper and deeper each time I take an engine apart, and currently I have removed the transmission from my van and I have removed the upper half of the engine block from my van - I just had the cam-shaft on its own in my hands. I bought a complete engine kit for the van, and it includes the valve stem seals anyway, so I could as well swap them, a.s.a. I figure out how to remove the valve springs. Checking for videos on youtube I found this:


Might be of interest for you, as your blue smoke could also be the result of damaged stem seals...

 

Thanks, I'm on it. I'm hoping for the best but preparing for the worst, as they say. Gee, only 32 seal to replace!!!! Yikes! I'm still hopeful it's a PCV. Going in for hip replacement surgery (yay) Monday morning so I haven't ordered one since' I'll be down for a few months. Plus it's getting cold and no heat in the garage. The PCV is easy enough to replace so I'm starting there. Thanks again. much appreciated

 

Yes, 32... That's 8 cylinders with each 2 intake valves and 2 exhaust valves.

My job was rather easy in comparison: 4 cylinder with just 1 in and 1 ex valve per cylinder = 8 valve stem seals.
And those old stem valve seals looked indeed rather sad. My van runs on LPG or Petrol, but plays up sometimes when on LPG. I could imagine that those stem seals might have been the issue, thinking that the gas might have escaped before it can even be ignited...

And I did it meanwhile: I swapped all 8 and reinstalled all 8 double-springs. I found out that one would normally use special tools for compressing/removing those strong valve springs and then again another tool to remove the stem seals and another one to reinstall the new ones. But apart from those tools being expensive, I would have to wait for their arrival in the mail. Hence, I repurposed a few tools, which I had (like: a small "puller" to which I attached a slide-hammer to pull up), and I welded another 2 other tools from scratch and I did everything without buying special tools.