Black Cloud of Smoke out the rear upon acceleration
 

Is this normal?

100 miles on my new 8. I shifted from 2nd to 3rd getting on the freeway onramp at around 5 or 6k. When I looked my rear view mirror, I noticed a large cloud of dark smoke where I just was.

Is this something that I should expect with rotaries? Maybe I'd been babying it too much before that?

Word, I have the same problem when I drop the clutch at 5k. ;)


I never experienced that... my advice would be to check the oil level and keep driving... see if it happens again.

Just sounds really rich to me. I do not see smoke when I am on it, but my tail pipes do turn black.

Just for reference:

BLACK smoke is fuel
GREY smoke is oil
WHITE smoke is water

Sometimes oil smoke will be so dense that it will seem white. You can tell it from water by the way it lingers and dissipates slowly. Water smoke evaporates immediately.

What you have is the result of a very rich mixture. It will lean out a bit as the car gets "worn in", but these engines run rich, anyway.

That is not a normal condition. A dark Black could that disipates relatively quickly is the sign of a more than rich condition; fuel is being dumped into your combustion chambers. I would take the car to the dealer and see if they can check the mixture for you. Even though your car is just beginning its break in, it should not do this, and I have heard of noone else's car doing this and mine sure didn't. I'd have it checked.

This is the result of the normal overly rich, fuel sucking ECU mod. It's why they get lousy mileage!

I'll take some more peeks in my rearview mirror when I get on it. Usually I've been busy looking where I'm going. If I see the black cloud several more times, I'll visit the dealer.

Solution:

When you hit 500-600 miles warm the engine up and drive it like you stole it.

You're are probably driving it nicely since it's brand new and are getting extra fuel due to the rich programming. It should go away after break-in.

Maybe you have a TDI model... :-)

LMAO!

Even cars with 70,000 miles shoot a puff of black smoke at WOT. Its just fuel, I wouldn't be worried.