Puff of smoke

Can anyone help me on this? Was in my 147 yesterday afternoon, and when I got onto an empty stretch of road at one point, I put my foot down in 2nd, went up to 5000 or so revs, just to enjoy the acceleration before changing up to 3rd. Normal sort of thing you do every now and then with an Alfa! However, I noticed in the rear-view mirror a puff of smoke just before changing up to three. Excuse my ignorance, but is this normal? It's a 2.0TS.

What colour of smoke? Was the car up to temp or not??

The car was up to temp, yes - as for colour, it was too quick to say, really, but suffice to say if it'd been a cold day I wouldn't have queried it, so it was greyish I think. Not blue, I don't think - that's bad, isn't it?!

Blue is very bad!! Blue means it is burning oil, so somehow oil is getting into teh chambers.

Gray - can mean anything It could simply be by spinning up it got rid of some unburnt carbon. The only other thing can be oil being smouldered (burnt off something hot) which if it was a tiny burst you'd never see and any more than that would cause plumes.

I'd just keep an eye on it as the unburnt guff idea seems to hold. If the car is making no untoward noises and doen't smell (if it burns oil you WILL smell it.) all is pretty ok mate

If you are really concerned wipe round the tailpipe with an old cloth you can throw away. Clean - OK. Mild amounts of black sooty gunk - OK just unburnt carbon deposits.

Anything wet & black is oil. Bad.

To tell the truth it really sounds like the car was just clearing it's throat.

It will deffo be unburnt fuel if you had your foot down a bit

Thanks for all that - I've just been out for a drive that was at times, 'spirited', and noticed nothing at all, so I think all's well. It's just been serviced - cambelt change, tensioners, etc - and it's never driven better to my knowledge, so nothing to worry about I don't think. Cheers again, James

No problem mate, i suffer from the WTF was that!?, thing sometimes too. Used to have an old Ford Fester that tought me all i'll ever need to know about cars burning oil (valve stems & seals were shot, serious over revving damage from the old bid that had it before).

Sounds like all is perfectly fine and you happened to look in the mirror when a tiny bit of partially burnt fuel got out between changes, happens.

Good to hear all is OK

Make sure you keep an eye on the oil level; if it is burning a bit you'll want to know as the engines are notoriously intolerant of low oil level.

keep checking that oil

Thanks guys. I did top the oil up after seeing the smoke, didn't put much in. Which reminds me - the maximum mark on the dipstick is SUPPOSED to be the top 'groove' - right? Well whenever my car's come back from service the actual oil 'line' is a centimetre or so above that mark. As such I keep it topped up to a similar level. Is that right?

i thought the top groove is the max...

Oil can gather water and other residuals when you crawl through city traffc for a long time and the engine is not driven hard every now and then. As a result the oil level may actually appear to rise but it will fall back to max or less when you give your car a good old italian tuning. And that puff of smoke could well have been just that, water and residues being evaporated and removed from the oil through the exhaust by the engine.

Originally Posted by alfasud.ti

Oil can gather water and other residuals when you crawl through city traffc for a long time and the engine is not driven hard every now and then. As a result the oil level may actually appear to rise but it will fall back to max or less when you give your car a good old italian tuning. And that puff of smoke could well have been just that, water and residues being evaporated and removed from the oil through the exhaust by the engine.

Really? A quarter of a litre of water? I didn't realise it was that much

If water does get into the oil, it normally sits at the bottom of the sump, therefore shouldnt be burnt, unless you have a major headgasket failure like mine and oil water has turned to mayo(doubt it though cos you would see loads of steam out the exhaust).

Even if that happened, I doubt water would get into the cylinders from the lubrication system, it would just leak from the cooling system to the cylinders instead. I had a massive head gasket failure, all my oil mixed with water and turned to mayo within about 30 miles, yet still when i drained the oil, i first drained about 2 litres of just water before loads of mayo, I dont think any of the water in the oil was being evapourated.