Smoke coming out of dash!!!

[Dan in NZ]

I was shopping today, so the car was fully warmed up and had been parked on the street for about 20mins. When I restarted the car funky smelling white smoke/steam/gas started coming out of the air vents. It was set 20"c with the a/c off and fan speed 1. The smoke stopped after about 30sec. I thought the a/c evaporater might have sprung a leak, but it still works fine. Could the god foresaken heater core cause this???

[Paul in NZ]

did the smoke/steam have the characteristic burning plastic/electrical smell?.Have you lost A/C?Losing coolant?......If the answer to all those questions is no then i would say it was just a strange combination of humidity,temp of air in car temp of air in intake system....had you had the a/c on b4.........

[Dan in NZ]

Doesn't seem to be losing coolant, but on cold nights when the defroster is on and I start the car after it's been standing but not cold, the windscreen fogs up then clears. A/C is still ice cold. No burning plastic/electrical smell. A/C was not on before.

It hasn't happened again, but my theory is: There may be a very tiny hole in the heater core, resulting in small amounts of moisture building up in the heater when the car is standing. It was a cool day, so I think the warm moist air in the heater must have condensed when it mixed with the cool air in the car.

It hasn't happened again so I'm just assuming it was a freak occurance. Still very alarming to be pulling out of a parking space with white vapours coming out of the dash vents...

[bimmerd00d]

change your microfilter, and your heater core is most likely leaking as well, but a microfilter change might fix it for a while. Procedure is at http://216.97.77.38/HTMLFiles/Menu3/Menu38/MicrofilterR&R.htm

knock yourself out ;)

[Dan in NZ]

My car pre-dates the microfilter...