Billowing White Smoke

[Evan]

after idling for ten minutes while I cleaned my windows inside and out.........

I drive off nice and easy in my shiny "new" E34 and a ton of white smoke billows out of the tailpipe along with the check engine light and some hesitation... after a tenth of a mile the smoke is gone but the check engine light is still on

check engine light has flashed on and off briefly the past couple of weeks...

Does anyone have a Peake tool they're willing to loan me for a deposit?

[Qube]

after idling for ten minutes while I cleaned my windows inside and out.........

I drive off nice and easy in my shiny "new" E34 and a ton of white smoke billows out of the tailpipe along with the check engine light and some hesitation... after a tenth of a mile the smoke is gone but the check engine light is still on

check engine light has flashed on and off briefly the past couple of weeks...

Does anyone have a Peake tool they're willing to loan me for a deposit?

If you were local :( Have we checked the usual suspects for white exhaust smoke? :(

[SnakeyesTx]

Compression leak-down test first and foremost. Drain the oil, check the coolant. :(

[Evan]

ship it to me.. i'll pay all costs and give you a $150US deposit

as for the smoke.. why would it come on hard like i blew a gasket.. then go away?

[ryan roopnarine]

are you saying that your stomp test produces non-sensical results? try disconnecting the battery for an hour and running it again. you'll lose your stored codes, but you'll see immediately what's wrong.

[Evan]

i can't get the stomp test to give me any results...

[Blitzkrieg Bob]

PVC plate thing on the manifold.

the V8s have a pvc thing on the rear of the manifold that goes, and produces symptoms like this.

[swenpro]

after idling for ten minutes while I cleaned my windows inside and out.........

I drive off nice and easy in my shiny "new" E34 and a ton of white smoke billows out of the tailpipe along with the check engine light and some hesitation... after a tenth of a mile the smoke is gone but the check engine light is still on

check engine light has flashed on and off briefly the past couple of weeks...

Does anyone have a Peake tool they're willing to loan me for a deposit?


Don't fret yet, Evan, it's just "that time of year". I went through the same paranoia a year ago when I first had the car, minus your check engine symtoms. One 45 degree F evening I stepped out of my car after driving it a few blocks and stepped right into a large cloud of a billowing white smoke! Wow, what a scare... I thought for sure I had blown a head gasket. Thing was, the smoke was odorless and no sign of coolant at all. As the season progressed into colder temperatures, no more billowing smoke. As pointed out above, I believe this is simply a result of the large and complex exhaust system on our 540s. It probably accumulates condensation inside easily if go on short drives. Hope this is your problem and nothing more :D

[DABLACK]

i have to agree with Blitzgrieg Bob
just an idea tho.....
it might be the cranck case ventilation and oil separator combo under and and the back of the intake... I had a E32 and it did the same thing ..pretty typical of this set up on the motor... the back plate needs to be changed do the front one as well.....here is sum pics

http://www.realoem.com/bmw/showparts.do?model=HE63&mospid=47410&btnr=11_1291&hg=11&fg=15

#3 in this pic is the plate with the o-ring to replace
http://www.realoem.com/bmw/showparts.do?model=HE63&mospid=47410&btnr=11_1498&hg=11&fg=40


good luck fairly easy repair tho

[Hal]

I had roughly the same thing happen some years ago on my '94 530iT. Just driving down the street when all hell broke loose with huge clouds of white smoke coming out the back with the car running crappy, and I thought for sure that it must be a head gasket or cracked block. I was able to drive it to my indy and come to find out it was some sticking crankcase or perhaps throttle valve or something (never quite got the story straight from the indy, but sounds like the PVC [PCV?] plate thing mentioned above). Don't panic just yet.

Hal

1994 530iT Nikasil powered 158,000 mi
1999 528iT 92,000 mi

[BillionPa]

yeah, the V8s dont blow headgaskets like the 6s do, unless they are under some extreme stress.

[MBXB]

My money is on the PCV plate.

[Evan]

the BMW indy wouldn't even look at the car... he said do the intake gaskets. "I don't want to take your $75 when i know what the code will be."