Smoking Engine after 10K Miles

I have a 2005 Legacy GT with 75K miles on the clock but just replaced the engine about 10K miles ago. I had smoking coming from the engine bay last year right after the engine was replaced but it turned out to be a line to the turbo malfunctioning. Now after a cold couple of nights with freezing rain I finally went out to commute back to college and found after 5 minutes I had white smoke coming from under the engine... I just had my oil changed less than 200 miles ago and always have it changed every 3K miles so this is a shock because I haven't found this car to have any big problems since the engine was replaced. What could this be? The smoke was mostly coming from the right side of the engine bay under the engine or possibly from the side where all I could see are belts... the smoke was enough to partially fill the engine compartment and wasn't showing signs of slowing... on top of the the oil temp was fine and no warning lights were showing on the dash... thanks for the help

Could be burning the oil, which could mean a ring land failure.

I'm going to guess that this is a small problem. Maybe when the engine was replaced the tech didn't torque down something correctly and maybe a hose came loose. A small drop of coolant or oil on a hot engine piece can smoke up bad and make it seem like a big problem.

White smoke is typically water vapor. You likely have a leak in your coolant lines or hoses.

I am having a similiar problem. Just had the turbo replaced by the dealer a couple of weeks ago. Just last week, when it turned cold, smoke started coming out of the hood scoop. Only happens on COLD startup. After getting going in the morning after engine gets up to temp the thing starts smoking. Then it will stop after about 5 more minutes of driving. The only time I can duplicate the problem is on cold startup in the morning. The smoke smells like radiator fluid burning and is coming from the passenger side if the engine.

 

Took car to dealer and they said a hose was leaking so I had them replace it. The next day I picked up the car (cold start again) and a couple of miles down the road when the engine started getting to temp. the damn thing started smoking again.

 

I have another call into the dealer.

 

Have you found the solution to your problem? Does it sound similiar to my problem?

 

Let me know any suggestions.

Sounds like coolant burning to me. Check the level on your turbo's coolant reservior and the hoses that run to and from the turbo. Also, take a look your exhaust manifold, uppipe, turbine housing, and downpipe to see if anything is resting on them and burning when they get hot.

If you are not losing any coolant, power steering fluid (PS/ATF fluid smokes when dripped on a hot manifold), have no contamination in you oil or coolant (the dreaded head gasket) and a mechanic just replaced or reinstalled the motor:

 

It can be the simple little PCV that is plugged up. A $3 part that should be replaced occasionally, and definitely by the mechanic that swapped the motor. Also check the vacuum hose coming off the PCV as it may be cracked, broken or loose at either end. It sucks smoke out of the valve head and shoots it back into the cylinders to reburn. If it isn't doing that then crankcase smoke/pressure will build up and find a way out, sometimes by breaking a valve cover gasket and/or ejecting the oil dipstick.

Oh, the PCV system on my motor is on the right side of center, but that's a 99. You noted it was mostly coming from the right side.

Dude this is from 2009.. it's 2014. I think..

Dude, people still read old posts as old cars have persistent/common problems that people may have noted years ago, therefore new people read old posts if the problem is there. This isn't twitter, facebook and chat space for bored millennials. For most it is a research problems site.

 

I'm sure the original poster already fixed their problem, blew a head gasket long ago or sold the car so I wasn't commenting to help the original poster. I hate to see multiple threads for the same thing, just because the new person w/ the problem didn't search first.