I’m having an issue with white smoke coming out of tail pipe 64k miles. no codes on dash . Took it to a mechanics shop and he said he thought it was condensation being that I live in Minnesota. It doesn’t smell like anything at all. He said that I have a leak of oil by the oil cooler system. He didn’t sound too sure at all. I took it upon myself to do some looking myself and took apart the throttle body hoses to get a good look and from what I can see is some is coming from in the area of the water pump and that the alternator is lightly covered in oil. I also had some slightly on the oil pan itself. I do smell coolant under the hood as I did from day one but it’s never gotten low. I’ve had the car for about 7 months now @ 40k miles can anyone help me please I’d appreciate it allot. Where should I start to pin point exactly where it’s coming from and to know if it is really just condensation coming out the tail pipe. I’ve driven it a few miles and let it run for an hour to see if it would stop but it hasn’t.

 

 

Does the white exhaust smoke occur only at startup or continuously after the engine has warmed up?

If only at startup, that's normal. Internal combustion engines produce carbon monoxide and water vapor. When the engine is shut off, that water vapor condenses in the exhaust pipe. When the engine is restarted, some of that water is expelled from the tailpipe and after it gets hot enough it is expelled as water vapor that is visible in cold weather as white smoke. It's just the same thing as whan you're outside on a cold day and when you exhale you can see your breath.

Continuous white exhaust smoke long after your car has warmed up is indicative of water being burned in the combustion chamber along with gasoline. That can be caused by a bad cylinder head gasket that allows coolant to get into one or more cylinders, or other possible causes.

Blue exhaust smoke indicates oil being burned together with gasoline in the cylinder head. That can be caused by worn piston rings and can usually be diagnosed with a compression test of each cylinder. Black exhaust smoke indicates too rich a fuel mixture.

I'm not an auto technician, so I might not be right ... but I think I am.

 

 

 

There are ways to diagnose this. First would be a coolant system pressure check followed by a leak down test since it is the easiest and quickest test. The coolant system pressure test builds pressure in the system without the car running. It will tell you if you have a coolant leak somewhere by seeing if the pressure falls rapidly. A leak down test is a little more complicated but it is used to assess how well the valves and rings are sealing in an engine. You use an air compressor, leak down tester, and an adapter in place of a spark plug. Also it makes it easier to find a problem in those areas since you will hear the air escaping. Leak down testing is measured by percentages. A cylinder that losses 10% of the air pushed into it is considered acceptable. 20% is getting up there, 30% is where you definitely have a problem. If you google it you find some very good explanations of the process.