Thread: Random smoking?

Today I went to go to class when I stopped at a friends house for a minute. I left my car idling for like 2-3 minutes and all of a sudden it started blowing white smoke out the exhaust. I immediately thought head gasket. It didn't smell like coolant, nor did the car overheat. The oil wasn't milky at all. Once I got to class, I let the car idle in the parking lot for a good 5 minutes and it wasn't doing it anymore. When I got home, I checked the plugs which looked normal. I also compression tested and all the cylinders were within like 10psi of each other. I've driven the car another 2 times or so since then and nothing.

I guess for now its not really a big deal, but its still kinda unnerving as it was a significant amount of smoke. Any ideas on what this might be? or has this happened to anyone else before?

Sounds like somebody sneaked some Seafoam into your engine lol. That's wierd.

I've seen bad turbo seals cause this, but it was usually black smoke. It would only happen after a few minutes of idling.

Find out what fluid is getting low first

Sounds like steam or condensation to me..

Thats kinda what it looked like.


Yea Idk it was a warm day like 70 degrees. Still hasn't happened again so I guess I'm not worried about it for now.

I would lol if someone pulled a fast one on ya.

*maybe* your fuel pump. If you follow FSM how to replace a gasoline filter by pulling the fuel pump fuse and let it idle, it will throw out a lot of white smoke and before engine dies of lack of fuel, it overheats first.

Does/did the smoke dissipate quickly into the atmosphere, or did it linger for quite a while?

If it dissipates quickly, it's water. If it lingers for a bit, it's oil.

Couldn't have happened. Nobody was around to do it. I can see my car from my room. Wish thats all it was.


I've done that procedure a few times and never noticed a lot of smoke when I let the engine starve of fuel.



It lingered a little bit. It was really weird. It just started all of a sudden. It didn't smell like oil, just regular exhaust and it wasn't blue at all like oil smoke usually is. The oil level has been at the top of the dipstick since I changed the oil 1k miles ago. Yo no comprendo

d you have a larger exhaust? it very well could be condinsation/ or water being burnt not coolant but a moist atmosphere being coupled with the hot exhaust causing the condinsation and or smoke...