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I purchased a cheap NB8A over the summer and have been enjoying driving it but since the weather has started getting colder it's been smoking out the whole street on the morning start up.
Car has 250xxx kms and a questionable service history
ONLY smokes in the morning for a few minutes, if I wait till the afternoon it doesn't smoke.
No oil in coolant no coolant in oil.
Smoke smells like fuel not coolant.
Doesn't overheat.
Pcv valve is clean.
Drives perfectly fine.
Fuel consumption does seem high for a 1.8

What are people's thoughts? Apart from the white smoke
It doesn't have any other signs of a head gasket leak. Could it be fuel related? Leaking injector? Cracked block?
Going to do a compression test soon and see how that goes. Any other suggestion for sorting this out?

TL;DR car smokes like middle aged European but only on cold start and then drives fine with zero issues.

CLT sensor or valve stem seals probably.

Hen10 wrote:but since the weather has started getting colder it's been smoking out the whole street on the morning start up.
ONLY smokes in the morning for a few minutes, if I wait till the afternoon it doesn't smoke.

Parked outside? Sure it's not just steam from burning moisture that has dropped out of air overnight?

Just saw this and immediately thought coolant sensor, it costs around $25. Also could be a valve stem seal issue but that would be oil.
I see that Dann has already mentioned this also.
I'd still be doing a compression test for peace of mind.

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RS2000 wrote:

Hen10 wrote:but since the weather has started getting colder it's been smoking out the whole street on the morning start up.
ONLY smokes in the morning for a few minutes, if I wait till the afternoon it doesn't smoke.

Parked outside? Sure it's not just steam from burning moisture that has dropped out of air overnight?

It is parked outside but it is definitely smoke. It lingers around and doesn't disperse like steam does.

Looks like I will start with a coolant sensor and go from there. Hopefully that will sort it out before my neighbours get too pissed off.

It's not an automatic is it?

It's not coolant temp sensor, if it is was over fueling it would be black smoke, if it's not condensation it could well be valve stem seals or broken ring. When it's upto operating temp hold revs to 5000 then let right off then rev it to 5000 again. If it's puffing smoke when your back on throttle it's drawing oil from somewhere.

LiteIsRite wrote:It's not an automatic is it?

It's a Manual.

Todd77 wrote:It's not coolant temp sensor, if it is was over fueling it would be black smoke, if it's not condensation it could well be valve stem seals or broken ring. When it's upto operating temp hold revs to 5000 then let right off then rev it to 5000 again. If it's puffing smoke when your back on throttle it's drawing oil from somewhere.

Alright I will do that tomorrow and see how it goes.

well I finally got around to doing a compression test today
cylinder one 179
cylinder two 170
cylinder three 175
cylinder four 170
these numbers don't seem to indicate bad rings which is a relief. There was a tiny amount of smoke when I revved the engine to 5k backed off and then revved it back to 5k so oil is coming from somewhere. I can only presume at this point that it is the valve stem seals.

Is it running ok or missing when it's smoking? Lacking power or normal acceleration?

Red_Bullet wrote:Is it running ok or missing when it's smoking? Lacking power or normal acceleration?

Runs fine and normal acceleration, there is no hesitation and it doesn't feel sluggish.

Valve stems mate. Pull exhaust manifold off and see if ports are wet, if not pull intake and do the same. You will know for sure then.

Also thinking valve stem seals. Very common issue for B series engines. And even more common with questionable service history.