Smoke from exhaust on startup..cats?

Hey all,

 

Just want to check something here. I just had an oil change a couple of days ago. Last night driving back from my gfs place I was driving fairly hard, didnt notice anythin strange (and magically avoided 3 speed traps ).

 

This morning when I started up my car I noticed a fairly large puff of smoke come out of the exhausts. I may have noticed a very small amount of smoke on startup on one or two other occaisions but this was quite a bit more smoke. The car drove normally and when I stopped and started it again no smoke.

 

Its a fairly warm day 25C/80F ish degrees, if that makes any difference.

 

Was this just a case of the cats doin their thing or is there something I should get checked?

 

Any ideas?

 

Thanks,

 

Phil

Color of smoke?

Umm smokey coloured?

 

Whitish/Greyish? I didnt see that well just noticed that when I started the car you could see tha smoke pouring out of the back, enough of it so that it came around to the drivers window.

 

Just started the car again. This time there was a very small amount of very light smoke, more like what I had seen one or two times before.

What kind of weather are you guys getting up there, deimos?

 

Could be the very first sign of some normal condensation coming from your exhaust, if indeed it's just coming out of your tailpipe.

 

I just noticed my first "contrails" (yes, I know, fantasies of being a fly-boy!) the other day. Cold weather is awesome.

What kind of weather are you guys getting up there, deimos?

 

Could be the very first sign of some normal condensation coming from your exhaust, if indeed it's just coming out of your tailpipe.

 

I just noticed my first "contrails" (yes, I know, fantasies of being a fly-boy!) the other day. Cold weather is awesome.

 

Its pretty warm and summery here today 25C/80F ish + any humidity. When the temp dropped here a few days ago it was like getting a free AP stage 1, conversly when it was 35-40C/90-100+F it was like someone stole my turbo

 

Anyways I dont know if it was condensation, I suppose it could have been but it was a pretty big cloud. It did seem to come out of the rear of the car, nothing from the engine bay.

 

Thanks for you responses. Any ideas will help.

 

Phil

If it came out of the exhaust tail pipe, then something is wrong.

How's the oil level ?

Possibly some oil accummulated in the cylinders is being burnt off at startup.

Its certainly been getting colder here in NH the last few weeks in the morning...Condensation is definetly starting to become present every morning now. Since you mentioned the morning thats the only reason i say that.

 

If its been around 80 F in the mornings up there, than this is definetly not the case.

Yeah its hot here now, def not cold this morning, and by morning I mean noon j/k actually thats when I started the car.

 

I just called my dealer. Service guy seemed to think that occaisionally theres some buildup in the exhaust that can exit when starting the car up, but he said if anything similar happens again in the next few weeks to bring it in.

 

Ive started the car a few times since and all seems normal.

 

Also I just checked the oil and its clean and on full (had an oil change 100kms ago).

Next time you start it up and it "smokes" pretty heavy, get back there and smell it. If it smells like regular catted exhaust then it's probably just condensation. If it smells pretty sweet and sort of like engine coolant, you might have a serious problem.

Thanks for the responses.