Billowing white smoke

[Wollemi]

My 2009 987.2 3.4 Boxster S has suddenly started billowing lots of white smoke on starting up from cold, and there is a pool of what looks like water on the ground below the exhaust pipes. There is sufficient smoke to obscure the back of the car and it goes on producing smoke for some time.
I've had the car 2 years now and it's not done this before other than maybe a very small puff. The car hasn't been used very differently recently and this problem suddenly appeared one morning and had continued since. To be fair I haven't driven it much since it happened, I wanted to find owhat the problem was first.

The OPC has been unable to find a fault, other than the cloud of white smoke coming when they've started it themselves. Coolant level has not gone done and the diagnostics are normal. Fortunatelythe car is under warranty

Any ideas - the OPC say the next stage is to do a compression test but the warranty won't cover this if no fault is found.

 

[MrDemon]

Fortunately the car is under warranty

give it too them and say fix it, is best advice, that's why one pays for a warranty, it's not your fault the OPC does not have the skill to diagnose the fault.
they should see it as a good learning curve ;-)

 

[Terry]

Check with a good independent if OPC will not help but it is most likely the oil separator which is not a particularly expensive repair. I would have expected that oil separator would be covered by warranty.

 

[Boxstercol]

Air Oil Separator would be my guess & by all accounts a fairly common issue.

However, am surprised that the OPC can't diagnose that if it is the AOS. I thought there was a way to check the AOS, try removing the oil filler cap when the engine is running, I believe that if the AOS is knackered then the oil filler cap will be difficult to remove. You might want to do a quick search on this though to be sure that this is the way to check as I'm going from memory.

Try Boxa.net forum as I think I read it on there a while ago.

Hope this helps.

 

[smegman]

Don't worry. It is probably the oil/air separator, an easy fix. The smoke is water vapour which collects in the exhaust pipes after the engine has been warm( condensation) this happens when the outside air is below 12 degrees. When you start up again the water boils off giving the impression of engine damage. Believe me mine can hide a battleship with the "smoke" it produces in the winter. Get the separator changed as a matter of course it will help a little.
Cheers,
Phill

 

[Superjoe]

My "warranty" runs out in Dec 2015 and I won't be extending it, it doesn't seem worth anything at all.
I would rather stash the money and cross my fingers !