Quick Question - Smokes

[xntrik]

From what I've read off bennjamin's post


you should only see smoke at certain times

black smoke = at full throttle upper RPMs
white smoke = early morning starts / cold mornings (condensation etc)

blueish smoke = when excess oil is getting into your combustion cycle
white smoke = when excess water/coolant is getting into you combustion cycle
- time for a compression test / leakdown test.

My car blows out minor white smoke on early cold morning starts, and sometimes notice frost on the carbon of my exhaust tip.

How do I fix this? and what problems may it cause? (To fix the white smoke)
Is it a problem to begin with?

[aimre]

white smoke = early morning starts / cold mornings (condensation etc)

[xntrik]

white smoke = early morning starts / cold mornings (condensation etc)

That doesnt answer the rest of my post,
and I'm sure I've read and acknowledged that

[markCivicVti]

White smoke is not a problem if it goes away after a bit... if you've got tons of white smoke still coming out after driving for 5 mins then there might be a problem.

But yeah, white smoke happens to everone on cold mornings.

Sorry not sure what you mean with the frost part - but err... doesn't sound like a problem.

[Paul1985]

You car will naturally run rich at cold start-up. This is normal. So it will be creating a little more smoke.

If its gone after the car warms up then its more likely quiet normal

[xntrik]

Thanks guys, just needed the confirmation.

And its not alot of white smoke, just enough to notice.
And dissapears after warmup.

[tran06]

hey is it bad for your car if it dumps out black smoke in higher RPMs?

[bennjamin]

no its actually good it does that. Its the engine running extra fuel to protect the engine :)

[tran06]

oh oks. thanks for that :)

[STTICH]

^ but it is generally more noticable wth older cars / engines.

newer cars hardly blow any black smokes even redlining, does tat mean its no good? and we'd much prefer them to blow black smoke during higher RPM ?

[mrwillz]

theres no carbon build up in newer cars?

[tran06]

so overall its better if no smoke comes out?

[baeshin]

so overall its better if no smoke comes out?

cars been thrashed

[JohnL]

It's not smoke (if your description is accurate), it's water vapour. Whenever you burn anything one of the by-products is water (from oxygen and stray hyrdrogen atoms being combined in the process of burning), light a match and watch very carefully on the wood just in front of the flame and you'll see a tiny amount of newly formed water, just before it evaporates.

On cold days the exhaust pipe is cold (yes really...), and this newly formed water coming from the combustion chamber is cooled as it travels down the cold pipe and until it turns from steam and condenses into larger but still tiny water droplets. It comes out of the pipe in a visible form, but as the pipe warms up it is no longer cold enough for the steam to condense into droplets and you can no longer see it. The frost you see on the exhaust tip is the liquid water droplets sticking to the cold pipe and freezing.

(Really, what do they teach kids in science class these days!)

[yourfather]

not much!