White Smoke?

What Does White Smoke Mean?

If it is indeed white smoke that lasts for a long time, thats ussually coolant. which generally means a blown head gasket or the like

I Know The Head Gaskets Are Good I Just Rebuilt My Motor, Top To Bottom. New Gaskets Throughout The Entire Motor. Including Headgaskets.

Any Other Reasons You Can Think Of.

If you get some smoke upon startup, it might just be condensation in the exhaust pipes. But as noted above, if the white smoke lasts for long durations, then it points to possible head gasket issues.

if you did just have engine done do coolant pressure test if there is no leak down head gaskets should be ok you could also pull plugs to see if there is anything aside of gas on them if these are fine it is possible coolant got into exhaust when tearing down motor just run car about 1800 rpm's and it will burn off sometimes it takes time/there was a few times i had to drive the cars to burn it off(nothing other drivers will like much)

yeah im hoping i didnt mess up a head gasket. im 99.9% sure the head gaskets are fine. Is that the only reason or could my piston ring be leaking? all the input has been great. thanks for the input and keep it coming.

If the piston rings were not sealing, you would have blue smoke then. Do a compression and cylinder leakdown test, that will be the way to tell if there is an engine problem.

i thought white smoke means your usually burning oil.

i thought white smoke means your usually burning oil.


White smoke = coolant
Blue smoke = oil
black smoke = extremely rich on the gas

Well appreciate that, I had it backwards.

Depending on the outside temperature, white smoke is usually fine. Does it have a sweet smell? Do you have any coolant loss? Oil in coolant?

I've heard this before but I don't know if there's any truth to this: Supposidly not running cats causes more condensation from the tail pipes. :shrug:

I just went through the same problem with my ford 4.0L V6. After ripping into the motor, I found all my gaskets were fine, as I inspected the heads I found my problem. A common problem with Ford 4.0L heads is they crack either between the valves, or from the bottom of the spark plug hole. I swapped out the cracked head, tanked them, and re-assembled the motor with new gaskets/headbolts.

I assume you did the same...

Did you change the oil? Use a motor flush to get the deposits and left over coolant/water and get some fresh oil in it.

A fine tuned motor will create some moisture that turns into a light white steam, but if it looks like a fog machine, you mite need to tear into it again...

when its warming up is when it happens and its not like a fog machine, lol, head gaskets are fine it seems to stop when motor is warm. figured it out it was 70 degrees yesterday. just the cold i guess!

condensation will do it.. if it is constiant reguardless of how long the car has been running is when you really need to worry... Pulling Sparkplugs though is a quick teller too.