E30 Zone

I've been away for 6 weeks so today I started my car for the first time since I went away. It started first time (hooray!) and other than a lumpy idle initially, seemed pretty good! After a minute or so though there began to be some smoke/steam (couldn't tell but looked quite white/grey) coming from the engine bay - specifically it seemed to be driver side bulkhead area although don't take this as concrete cause it was hard to tell. I turned it off when I saw it in a panic. Is this fairly normal? The car overheated a little while back so I don't know if that could be related?

Also, the passenger footwell is soaked, which I understand could be a number of things. I guess cause it's got soaked without any engine running it probably isn't heater matrix related? It doesn't seem to be coloured or smelly so seems to be regular rainwater but I wasn't sure if this could be related to the smoke/steam hense the mention.

Cheers!

Oil leak onto exhaust?
For the wet footwell, check the RH stud and area around it, that the glovebox hinge is fixed to.

Brianmoooore wrote:Oil leak onto exhaust?
For the wet footwell, check the RH stud and area around it, that the glovebox hinge is fixed to.

I guess with the back jacked up for two days it could have sent oil where it shouldn't have been and leaked somewhere?

I had a look at the bulkhead in that footwell not long ago and it all looked pretty good back there. The drive is wet under that corner too so I guess its eventually hitting the floor via my footwell.

If the back of the car was jacked up the water is probably a build up of rain water in the sills. Water drains from the depression for the sunroof down the front pillars into the sills. There are drainage holes/slits that the water then exits.
The car needs to be somewhere near level for the water to drain out of these holes.
P.S. Its worth checking that the sill drainage holes are free from blockages with a small screwdriver.
I had water ingress once and this was the reason!