my car smokes white smoke will idling and taking off from first. also when shifting gears, when you put your foot back on the gas, it smokes for a short while. it only does this when boosting so im assuming its my turbo. anyone who has had this problem, please give me some info on what and what not to do. how much will this cost to get fixed? any info is appreciated. thanks guys.

Some light grey smoke is common place on a fairly stock car like yours. Basicly from the car runs a little rich under hard acceleration. Remember also, that you have no cat or other emmisions....

The car's got a brand new head gasket, and I checked the trubo out pretty good before I bolted it up, so you should be ok there. Always funny stuff going on on an 11 year old car...

actually i just got new front tires today, havent seen if that makes any difference. having had 3 previous awd's im kinda used to that. i love awd, but i am still getting used to the fwd. i raced your old blue TSi awd last night. one of my freinds has it. he had me off the line, but by third i had caught up and woulda past had i not slowed down. if i ever get the chance to get another awd, i might, but i just need to learn to drive a fwd again

i checked the coolant today and there was none in the resevoir, so i filled that up properly and still got a TON of white smoke. my dad thinks it might be the head gasket. any other thoughts on this? could it be leaking/burning coolant? like the exhaust always smells hot, and the engine smells like burning somthing.

like this is white smoke that seems like its just coming from the back of the car. like its all over, and then when idling it just smokes out of the exhaust.



if possible, i would like one of you, um, more experienced dsm guys to drive it and tell me what you think.

Is this something that just developed? The car has a brand new head gasket. If it blew the head gasket, I would imagine it would run like crap. How is the idle? Do a compression check. Compression was good shortly after the motor was put back together, 125+ on a cold motor. Was there coolant missing out of the motor itself?

we checked the level in the radiator cap and it was just a tad low there. what about this whole turbo-coolant issue? i start class tomorrow but im gonna call slo pny's and see what we can do there. id rather them check it out then me screw somthing up trying to do it myself.

Please let us know what you find out...

BTW- I've got those reciepts for the brake calipers if you are interested.

The turbo would have to be really screwed to leak coolant, as in a cracked water jacket in the bearing housing. Not impossible, but probably less likely than other things. Have you checked all the coolant lines for any obvious leaks? Heater lines, lines to and from the turbo, lines to and from the oil cooler, lines to and from the throttle body elbow, main radiator hoses. Check around the thermostat and the cap for leaks. If all these are clean then it very well may be the head gasket. Usually a car with a blown head gasket won't run very well, like Rob said. I'd check the compression on it before tearing it all apart to find that the head gasket is still intact...speaking from experience here.

When the seals on my turbo blew a while back, it smoked light blue almost white under the hood and out of the exhaust pipe. You might want to check your turbo. Try to move the shaft back and forth. If there is a lot of play, more than approx. two or three millimeters your turbo oil seals may have blown out. Another good indication is if your car simply won't build boost.

good luck man