i have noticed that quite some white smoke coming out of the exhaust when i start the car after a long time parking (overnight or after a day of work).
i know it is kind of cold (around 40F) now, so every car should have some smoke coming out of the tail...but the smoke from 8 seem a lot more noticable... i can tell when i am driving out of the parking lot from my work, other cars do not have THAT much smoke... i can see quite a bit of smoke just from rearview mirror.

this morning i smell the smoke, it smells kind of oily...but not bad at all. after a drive around the block (800 yards or so) the smoke disappeared completely...so i am thinking since it disappear so fast, maybe it is just condensation/water leftover in exhaust?

can anyone confirm if coolant or oil is burning, will it disappear that fast (a drive around neighborhood block)? or will it last longer?

 

Most likely is water burning. Oil burning would give a more distinct color. I have the same condition in the cold.

 

same here, my 8 blows out a lot of smoke when it's cold and not warmed up at all. I had the same reaction you did when I first say it.

 

Oil would be more blue smoke and water/coolant would be more white vapor.

But the smell of oil is pretty clear.
Could be a bad seal.
After parking it's leaking into one ofte rotor chambers and then burning off as you drive it.

Or it could be water vapor forming in your exhaust system overnight but that should only be a morning type event...

I'd take it in just to see what and where it's coming from.

 

The oil smell could be because the cat's not warmed up enough to catch everything. A car's first five minutes is almost catless in emissions.

 

This was my first thought, also. When you drive and warm the car up more, the seal "seals" more, causing the oil to stop leaking into the chamber. It wouldn't hurt to take it in and at least get a check out.

What's your year/mileage?

 

it is a 07 with about 18K on it

 

what seal are you talking about? can you elaborate? thanks

 

i bet its just the cold starts and probably water ...

 

^ im with you on that one

 

One of the side seals between the rotor and the housing but if you only have 18k on it I doubt that's it now.

Also coolant has a kinda sweet smell when it's being burned off.

The only time I have anything like smoke is in the mornings now that it's cooler/cold and it's the normal water vapor.

Our engines need care when things are not normal so don't wait too long if it's still there....

 

this is perfectly normal.... just a cold start

 

yep, cold start. It actualy helps lube your seals on a cold start.

 

I bet you're probably just smelling the car running a little bit rich during its warmup. Unless you have any other symptoms (loss of power, etc), don't worry too much about it - just make sure you keep checking your oil level for a little while in case it's worse than I think :-)

 

Out of all of the rotary's I've had, I've never seen THAT much whiteness out my tailpipe when driving on startup in cold temps of 40. Hell, it was that temp recently here and I didn't see much at all. I guess I've just been lucky/unobservant.

 

One of my older 87 rx-7's smoked a lot one time for no reason. it had ok compression but one day after I changed the oil it just started smoking so bad at a red light no one could see it turn green! I drove it around that day and i noticed it was pumping all the oil out of the tailpips and they were actually dripping. No one could explain it..but after that day..I put in 2 quarts of oil it lost and it stopped doing it for good??? who knows......

If it does it all the time, you probably have a blown seal/ either side or apex or they are wearing down. If it only does it sometimes I wouldn't worry about it so much unless you are really hard on the car and only using 5w-20.

Smoking is normal when you flood the car. When you get it started again it will flood a couple houses then it's good. Just get it in the road after it warms up and run it good to clean it out.

 

Could be that it stays very dry in your area. Only time I got white smoke coming out the back was last week, when it was in the low 40s and high 30s in the mornings, and there were quite a bit of clouds in the sky.

 

my car was garaged for a week and when i started up this morning there was ALOT of white smoke comming out of the exhaust, but no smell.

 

i get it sometimes as well before i got my midpipe. its just water burning off.

 

That would make some sense.

Damn you, mysterious engine!

 

Pffft, don't blame the engine.. blame the long pieces of metal tubes that can house water!

 

rotarys is like a female, cant understand them

 

^+1

 

Haha I just lol'ed on that.

 

your lucky because mine is that time of month again