Help required. Yesterday morning around 9 miles into my 12 mile daily commute to work it looked like the world had come to an end. Behind me was an enormous cloud of white/grey smoke. The smoke dissapaited after a few seconds and I noticed no loss of performance. About two miles later the same again. I took her out for a spin at lunch time and it happened again so I quickly ran it up to my mates garage where the motor ran sweetly for half an hour without incident. He plugged in the computer and found no fault codes. I returned to work untroubled and again there was no repeat on my return home last night or my journey to work this morning.

Has anyone come across such a fault?

The car is a 2006 4.4V8 Petrol Jag engine.

I have checked the levels of coolant and oil, all seem fine. The oil looks clean without evidence of water.
No noticable increase in running temperature.

Despite the levels being OK at the moment, doesn't mean that every thing is ticketyboo.

White smoke is usually coolant going straight into the combustion chamber so would normally indicate a leak in the headgasket or other coolant conduit.

First ask your mate if he can do a test on the coolant to check for presence of exhaust fumes.

Keep an eye on coolant and oil, levels, colour and quality. Also check the ATF !! The coolant to ATF heat exchanger can be ruptured internally (happened on my 4.2 SC although no white clouds).

Also check under the hood and under the car for traces of coolant being pushed out of the system onto hot parts like exhaust manifold etc. That can also cause white smoke.

Is your petrol tank clean and free of water (if there is some water in the fuel it probably won't run well but still).

Hope it is nothing major though, please keep us posted  MY 2010 5.0 SC Galway green and sand interior!!
Have the Faultmate MSV2 Extreme to be tinkering with the settings etc. !!

New Pope?

Paul

New Pope? What do you mean?

PaulTyrer wrote:

New Pope?

JJ

Bobcat4472 wrote:

Paul

New Pope? What do you mean?

Nice one.

My head is in the bin at the moment expecting another expensive trip to garage.

Sorry,

Just my sense of humour, backfires sometimes (and that is not another car related pun!)

We have a 2003 4.4 BMW engine RR and it is dropping a bit of oil, but only when cold, once its warm it doesnt do it!

Did it chuck out the white smoke shortly after braking??

The brake servo can fail and allow the vacuum pipe on it to suck brake fluid into the inlet manifold, this then burns as white smoke, and loads of it..... Pete

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2014 L405 Autobiography SDV8 4.4 Loire Blue Ebony interior
2011 L322 Vogue SE 4.4 TDV8 Baltic Blue. Parchment over Navy Interior. Sold
2012 L322 Autobiography 5.0 Supercharged Ipanema Sand, Jet Interior. Sold
2002 L322 Vogue 4.4 V8 Epson Green, Ivory over Aspen Interior (Fatty Offroader) Sold
-Click for Project Fatty off roader-

Thanks for all the suggestions.

Haylands it did chuck out the smoke after breaking. I have just had pads and discs changed, I wonder if this is a coincidence.

Easy way to check, drive along, brake hard for a few seconds, then accelerate hard, if it does it then it's pretty much 100% the servo.... Pete

__________________________________________________
2014 L405 Autobiography SDV8 4.4 Loire Blue Ebony interior
2011 L322 Vogue SE 4.4 TDV8 Baltic Blue. Parchment over Navy Interior. Sold
2012 L322 Autobiography 5.0 Supercharged Ipanema Sand, Jet Interior. Sold
2002 L322 Vogue 4.4 V8 Epson Green, Ivory over Aspen Interior (Fatty Offroader) Sold
-Click for Project Fatty off roader-

Thanks Pete, never heard of that problem so good to store in the old memory banks  MY 2010 5.0 SC Galway green and sand interior!!
Have the Faultmate MSV2 Extreme to be tinkering with the settings etc. !!

Again thanks for all the helpful advise.

A quick update. The good news, I guess, is that so far no repeat of the clouds of smoke, not even a puff. The bad news I suppose is that I am no near to finding out what caused it.

Maybe I am being overly optimistic but thankfully I think I can rule out the coolant scenario's such as cracked head or cylinder head gasket as I would not expect such an issue to be one off and so short lived

I have checked all the fluids including the brake fluid and all appear normal level and in good condition.

I tried Petes suggestion of braking hard followed by hard acceleration and was not able to replicate the smoke. Could this have been a one off problem with the servo? To be honest it does seem to be the most likely explaination when related to the symptoms.

If they forced the pistons back in too fast when changing the pads then they could have flipped the seals in the master cylinder, they could then have flipped themselves back whilst driving, don't know exactly how the FF system works but I suppose some could have got through and into the inlet, it doesn't take much to make a lot of smoke...

If it's not doing it anymore then don't worry about it.... I'm sure it will let you know when something needs doing...!!! Pete

__________________________________________________
2014 L405 Autobiography SDV8 4.4 Loire Blue Ebony interior
2011 L322 Vogue SE 4.4 TDV8 Baltic Blue. Parchment over Navy Interior. Sold
2012 L322 Autobiography 5.0 Supercharged Ipanema Sand, Jet Interior. Sold
2002 L322 Vogue 4.4 V8 Epson Green, Ivory over Aspen Interior (Fatty Offroader) Sold
-Click for Project Fatty off roader-

Well stone me after going 3 weeks without even a hint of smoke it has returned with avengence. The smoke was so thick this morning that it nearly caused an accident.

Off to the indy yet again lets hope they find something this time.