Originally Posted by Mr_Caine
I'd be very surprised if it were the valve stem seals too. How do they know this?
Their reasoning was as follows:
The car smokes badly from cold, but the smoke gradually disappears as the engine warms up. As the car is left turned off, say overnight, oil collects in the cylinder as it passes through the broken valve guide seal. The smoke seen on cold start up is the oil being burnt off. Once the car is warm, the offending oil has been burnt, hence the car appears ok. On my car, there is also smoke under acceleration, they speculated that this could be due to slight piston damage, but I kind of lost track from there I'm afraid
It is a big job yes, as big as replacing the head gasket, but Ruspers still quote under half the price that Bishops quoted so I am inclined to let them get on with it...