(Not having a search facility is a real pain! I'm sure someone posted something about getting white smoke, but can I find it?...can I hell!! And that's after doing an Edit/Find on some 80 pages. Grrrrrrrr.)

Anyway......having dropped my wife off at work on Saturday - a round trip of about 8 miles - I got home, and noticed that white smoke was pouring out of the scoop, and from the imitation ventilation thingy on the driver's side of the bonnet. On opening the bonnet, I could see some smoke coming from the depths, but couldn't really say from where, except that it's on the driver's side of the engine bay. This was accompanied by quite a strong smell of burning.

I haven't noticed the smoke before, and didn't notice it yesterday either (although that was a much longer run), but I've had the burning smell before, and again yesterday. The car is a MY00, with about 3100 on the clock. Any ideas anyone?

Pete

 

Sounds like a small, intermittent fluid leak dripping onto something hot like an exhaust header etc: if the car's that new then I'd say its a dealer / warranty job. It should still be relatively clean (ish) underneath so up on the ramps a leak should be easy to spot. Good luck

 

Pete,
I've had similar symptoms and found the cause to be a slightly loose oil filter, which then drips and gets blown by the airflow onto things like your sump guard, headers and downpipe. It was this that was causing the smoke and associated smell (in my case at least).

You can get the same(ish) symptims from a leaking rocker box cover (apparently quite common). This is easy to spot when you look into the engine bay and if no oil is present there it may point you towards the oil filter.

ChrisW.

 

Brickboy/Chris

Thanks for your comments guys. I've got the car booked in for next Saturday, so hopefully they can sort it out then. I only use the car at weekends, so if it's oil or whatever dripping onto hot pipes, it has probably accumulated during the week which may be why I got the smoke on Saturday, but not yesterday. It puts a bit of a dent in the image, though, as it looks as if the car is on fire!

 

This sounds like the famous timing cover oil leak - a well known problem - not difficult to cure but a bit labour intensive.