nosky

My 97 ES smokes when I start it up but after about a minute or two it stops. I have 166K miles on the car; any suggestions or ideas? It runs smooth no hesitations etc.

mmatheny

Oil leaking into the combustion chambers around the valve guides.

BoostedE21

mmatheny is right. The valve guides on older cars can leak a little, allowing oil to settle on the valves - when you start the engine and vacuum develops, the oil's sucked into the combustion chamber and burns off. No big deal, it's just an old car thing.

mmatheny

Use oil formulated for higher mileage autos, and get a high SAE number to cut down on the bypass. I.e., don't get the thinner oils they are trying to push everyone to today to get better gas mileage. I always go 20W50 or 10W50 (especially in Texas, where it gets hotter than a blast furnace in the summer!) The higher number at the end shows how well the oil will retain it's viscosity (thickness) at higher temps. The first number is how free flowing it stays at lower temps. Lower the first number, more free flowing it is at low temps - higher the second number, doesn't thin out at high temps as much.

96Schwarz

you probably have excessive sludge buildup in your valve covers. Take the front one off and see what it looks like.

llcoolpass

mmantheny +1

GrKAvalon

you sure its not just the weather? =/ if it's a cold start your rpm's may be running higher causing more fumes to come out the exhaust which you'd notice more smoke.. (i was freaking out about this too cause my car was smoking like hell constantly, so I checked out my friend's subaru, someone's g35 adn my moms q45, all did same..) soo look around other cars too. Probably newer better so you know they won't have a problem too =P

llcoolpass

It could also be your car feels nervous about the way you're driving it, and just ''wants to take the edge off'' with a good smoke.

nosky

Thank you for the replys, I had the oil changed the day before and they put in a 5/30 synthetic blend, the wife just reminded me that the last time we had the oil changed it smoked.
Thanks again!!

llcoolpass

well, there is a chance, although very sad if true, that the oil level is exceedingly high in the crankcase. if this were true, then the pistons would be smashing into the oil smashing oil past the oil rings into the combustion chamber thereafter burning it out the exhaust.
i have seen this before believe it or not from a kid [nation of origin remains anonymous although I know people would find it funny thanks to chapelle show stereotype olympics] who tried changing his oil first and he removed the trannsmission pan , dumped all the fluid out of it, then filled the engine oil up with 4 qts. thus , the trans was half empty and the engine was two times normal.... stupid people, what are you going to do?

mmatheny

OK - what color is the smoke? White - either oil burning out of the cylinders, or moisture burning out of the exhaust pipe and cat. Black - fuel rich mixture