pugg57

my car in the morning (lately its been pretty cold out) smokes a little when i first start it up. i let it idle for a few minutes while i scrape off the windows. it smokes mildly most of the time, right up till the temp starts to move up then for about 30seconds to a minute it smokes like a french *****. after that it goes right back down to the just a tiny bit it had been before and as the needle hits the bottom line on the gauge, the smoke goes away. its white smoke so i think its just running rich in the cold. it didnt' seem to have that problem when it was warmer out when i bought it (50's instead of 20-30's) i know a little smoke is normal when cold, and i'm not TOO worried since it goes away when it hits that bottom line but is there anything i can do to get it to stop the 30 second binge?

DaveW

One of the products of combustion is water. When the exhaust system is cold this condenses on the inside of the system. As things warm up, it starts to evaporate, causing steam (white smoke).
As long as you are not losing any water from the cooling system due to bad o-rings, this steam is entirely normal.
I don't know of any way to eliminate it.

pugg57

thanks Dave, i just got the car about a month ago and have read about this being normal all the time but still... just kinda needed someone to tell me that my situation is normal. Much appreciated.

pugg57

if it were coolant leaking into the engine it wouldn't quit when it warms up right?

DaveW

It wouldn't quit leaking, but if it wasn't a severe leak, you might not see it with the water staying in vapor form in the exhaust gas. As I said, there is always water vapor in the exhaust gas. There would just be more if you had a problem. There have been many posts on o-ring water leakage problems. Just do a search.