Am I being paranoid - White smoke?!

[300CE]

OK, could just be me being a plank, but I get a lot of white smoke after about 30 secs of start up which then disperses to a minimal amount after about 15 mins if just left to tick over (without driving). If I go out for a drive and come back there's nothing at all when on tick over.

I never have to top up the header tank with coolant or the oil between services but just wondered if there is anything I should keep an extra eye on just in case.

Cheers in advance!

[itchyfeet]

Sounds like water vapour to me which is perfectly normal in winter, it's there all the time you only see it when the engine is cold.

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[300CE]

Cheers Itchy, was a case of me looking at it and thinking that looks a bit too much but am sure all is tickety-boo - even checked the vacuum hose to make sure it wasn't pulling any fluid through!

[itchyfeet]

When I had a cracked head I got a lot of water vapour but it was different to normal in that it was there hot for a short while after stopping and restarting, in the end it was permanent and some small loss of coolant.
Yours sounds normal but always worth monitoring it for a while.

[300CE]

Yeah, i see what you mean - i had the same sort of symptoms with my Merc in that it looked fine whilst driving (and up to temperature), but you could see white smoke every now and again in the mirror after stopping say at a set of lights and then pulling away - turned out to be a leaky core plug. I can't see that i'm getting anything like that at the minute.

I have heard that you can also get white smoke if a vehicle is over-fuelling so i may pop it up to my friendly garage and get him to put in his probe (ooo err missus!) and check the emissions.

[CovKid]

Doubt you've got anything to be worried about. On cold days I get a cloud of it. Can seem alarming. Once temperatures outside are normal - zilch.

[300CE]

Thanks again chaps - much appreciated!

[kevtherev]

On LPG mine looks like a steam train at the station!
Pulling away leaves the car behind invisible in my cloud.

remember.. smoke prevails, steam dissipates