On Friday I was stuck in traffic for about 10 minutes. It was a bright sunny day, so when I pulled away, I saw a significant amount of white/blue (oil) smoke. This is the third time in 2 years that this has happened.

the first time was after an extended time at speed on the highway. We pulled off and let the car idle for a few minutes, then when we took off there was smoke.

The second time was in traffic again.

All times the smoke went away and didn't return that day, that week, that month.

It seems very strange to me, like opinions on what it could be. Turbo seals? My car normally uses about 1-1/2 quarts of oil between 5000 mile oil changes, but I don't see smoke on a regular basis.

Mike

 

Usually when an engine idles for a prolonged period of time and your seeing blue smoke, it almost always is a valve stem seal issue. When valve stem seals start going bad the usual and most common symptom is blue smoke after prolonged idling when you start moving again, since your turbo can only leak oil during boost it can't be that unless you have both blue smoke when idling and after sustained highway speeds.

It's a sign of things to come, problems don't always start out worst case scenario, sometimes it takes time for things to start rearing there ugly head. You should not see blue smoke the way you discribe at any time when a engine is running, burning oil vapors is another story. Are you using the OEM dipstick and what oil? They have been known to give false readings because of the way they are designed, Mini quit using dipsticks altogether in the F56. BMW quit using dipsticks years ago. Germans attempt so much over engineering that it ends up biting them in the rear-end! Then they don't know how to fix their cars!

It could also be a bad head gasket that's leaking coolant and oil, white smoke is coolant, blue smoke is oil.

 

I was just having the same small issue and rebuilt my turbo and smoke is gone I was just getting it sitting in traffic. and the turbo does still have oil and coolant pumping through the turbo housing even at idle.

 

I had this problem with my mini. It turned out to be the valve seats had hardened and leaked oil. The only fix was a valve job!