Car spitting soot & water at startup...What is it?
 

For the past week when I have started my car for the first time that day it seems to spit soot and water out. When the car warms up it doesn't do it anymore but I can't help but wonder what it is. I put my hand in front of the tip and caught some of it and it doesn't seem to smell like anything. I can smell a little fuel but I assume that is because it is really running rich at idle and startup. Alsof for the first time since my rebuild I get a small puff of smoke at startup but that goes away quicker than the watery soot stuff.

Does the fact that my airpump doesn't work affect anything that might cause this (driving me nuts, trying to fix it)? Any help would be appreciated.

As the weather gets cooler, you'll get some condensation in the exhaust. It will get kicked out on startup. It's perfectly normal.

This must be the first car you ever owned, or else owning the car has opened you mind and expaned your senses.


It is just that you never looked at other car exhaust before under the same circumstances. Like the similar question, what is the white foamy stuff in the oil filler tube. That stuff has also been around since gas engines
have been here.

Glad to see some other minds are waking up!

lolz :) I just woke up too

Byproduct of combustion is H2O which is in the form of steam which condenses in the cold pipe at startup until the pipe temperature exceeds the temperature where it condenses. I have seen streams of water coming out of people's cars when they accellerate after stopping at a light with a cold engine.

The soot is collecting and attaching to the water. This is another byproduct of combustion, but may have more to do with inefficient combustion at cold startup.

Tim