E30 Zone

Hi,

My car has started to smoke in the mornings on start up, can anybody help me

valve stem oil seals most likely

Does it just chuck out some on startup and maybe for the first minute or so & then it's alright?

If you can get it to a garage, see if they'll compression test it for nothing to make sure it isn't the piston rings.

Yep that's what happens are the stem seals easy to change or is worth using an oil treatment??

what car/engine is it?

Stem seals can be replaced with the head in situ if you can find a way of keeping the valve from dropping down into the cylinder, one way is to connect an airline to the relevant chamber via the spark plug hole.

The usual way is to remove the head, but that of course creates more expense as you'll need a full headgasket set (which will contain the valve stem seals) plus bolts and then you end up with a new cambelt and doing the water pump whilst you're there. You're probably into £150 of parts to do it yourself. Probably a £300 job at a garage easily, unless they do it via the airline method, but they'll still want a good couple of hundred quid.

You can try a treatment I guess but i don't think they are often successful.

My car is 318i M40 engine - that is little gutting oh well it moght cheaper to buy another car as it only cost me £350 to buy last year

Depending on the condition of the shell (rust), might be worth thinking about an engine swop.

if the rest of the car is good then get another lump in there, another M40 lump isn't going to be more than £100 and if you can see/hear the engine running beforehand then it's less of a gamble on putting something in that's worse than what you've taken out

are you sure its blue smoke and not white smoke? Dont confuse blue oil smoke with white smoke due to condensation in your exhaust.

if it smokes the same once warm them begin worrying, if it is only white whispy smoke on start up when cold that quickly disappears then the condition may be perfectly normal for this time of year.

mrlee

Or just live with it? Keep the oil topped up and she'll keep going for a while yet!

geoffrey wrote:Or just live with it? Keep the oil topped up and she'll keep going for a while yet!

Agree with that

ive got an engine m40 engine for sale can be seen and heard running (might be in for sale section, not sure if it posted) Pm me

It's blue smoke it is a real shame because I love driving the car, there is a little rust around river side rear arch but that is it.

I think I'm going to live with until warmer weather comes and then get some quotes...