Smoking 2002 C4S

[AVIA8R]

Help! I have a 2002 C4S with 55k miles. I've never raced it, but admit to a WOT acceleration from time to time. A few months ago following an on-ramp (with a slight right hand bend) acceleration, the car through a large puff of smoke and then smoked for the next few start-ups. I searched on this site (great site!) and found that it happened to a few other people and that is was likley not a big deal. It did this two more times. HOWEVER, it did this last week. But, this time it continues to smoke. It doesn't seem to smoke while the car is moving, But, when I pull away from a light the car puts out a smoke screen that James Bond would be proud of (but not me). I'm embarresed. I paid more than 3 times for this car than I've ever paid for a car before and the engine is smoking at 55k miles. Any advice? Is this the dreaded sleave problem that I've heard so much about? I thought that was fixed in the earlier 996s.

It might not matter, but I did just replace the clutch a few weeks ago.

[RFM]

If your engine is not overfill with motor oil, take a look to the air-oil separator. This item is discussed many times do a search ( AOS )

[AVIA8R]

Thank you very much for the reply. I also suspected that I've taken it to The Garaj in Dayton. He said that his initial look at it doesn't indicate that problem due to no oil being in the coolent. Would this cause this?

Also, when I drove it to the shop I noticed that it only smoked (a LOT) after or during a turn. Thoughts?

[RFM]

Blue smoke while turning is a sign of overfilling, but dont forget to check the AOS which have noting to do with oil in the cooling water.

[AVIA8R]

UPDATE: The car, a 02 C4S, continued to blow smoke more and more. The cause was a bad Oil/Air seperator. It was about $600 installed and totally fixed the problem. If your 996 starts blowing smoke at start-up, during hard accelerations and/or during hard turns, just save yourself time and pain and just get the O/A seperator replaced. By the time I replaced it, it blew about 4 qts of oil from my house to the shop (15 miles). It was almsot comical on how much smoke it was pumping out.

[der meister]

Glad to hear it was a fairly simple fix, thanks for sharing the results.

[CosmosC4S]

I had ample early warning signs and symptoms but didn't take advantage of it,

I have an appointment to take it in for a A/OS replacement next week.

I am not looking forward to the embarrassing drive down! :rolleyes:

[AVIA8R]

Well, I first had visions of $15k engine replacement when it first started to happen. Then, like everyone else I'm sure, I was ranting in the gargage about "how does a $90k+ car do this. This is rediculous. I've owned a dozen cars costing a fraction of this car. My wife was sick of hearing about it"

It was a relief to only pay $400.

If your drive to shop is anything like mine, it was pretty funny. When I drove straight, there was no smoke. But, whenever I made any type of turn, it looked like a James Bond smoke screen.

JUST LAUGH AS IT HAPPENS!!. and TAKE EXTRA OIL. I should have stopped before I got to the shop. My Low Oil Light was on by the time I got to the shop. But, there was no damage.

Good luck!!f

Matt

[CosmosC4S]

Yeah, I've been losing oil lately. Before this the car rarely lose any oil at all.

I'm just concerned that excess oil in the cylinders might foul up the plugs, or even worse, the 02 sensors or the cats.