HELP!!! Smoke from tail pipes this morning?

This morning I went tostart up my 2002 targa, and there was a huge puff of white smoke and it continued for about the first 3 min, then never again today. Last night I changed the air filter, and drove the car pretty hard after words then parked it in teh garage. Did I do something wrong perhaps? And help would be greatly appreciated, oh and it only has 27,000 miles. Thanks Dr Jeremy B

Jeremy, Don't be alarmed just yet, 99% of the time is normal. It is a fairly normal characteristics of a horizontally opposed engine. As the engine sits, oil will seeps through the rings as it is flat and that's why you get the white smoke on start up. I know the 993s does this sometimes, like 1 out of 20 starts, not sure if this was mentioned in the 996 manual at all.

Thanks so much, of course it does make alot of sense, I wonder if driving it hard and then ****ting it off right away had anything to do with it too?

whoops I meant shutting it off, sorry about that guys

i am not an expert myself, well this is the internet so i'll give it a shot! white smoke -> coolant blue smoke -> oil when u see BIG white smoke coming out, your engine is fried, as bob and other guys described before.

It did have a blue tint possbily, definately oil smoke, no doubt

Jeremy, this is very common with 2002+ cars. Next time before turning the car off, let it idle for a minute or two, this will let the oil drain, preventing from burning off on start up.

i always let car idle for 2~3 miutes in the garage. while my wife will yell:"what you crzay! u not driving a turbo!!!"

Well, next time she tells you that, just tell her you are practicing for the 997 turbo you ordered last week, and that by October when it is due to arrive, the 2 - 3 minute idle will be habit for you.

Not letting the engine run is what triggers the smoke in my car. Last weekend I put the summer wheels and tires on and had to move it twice, once into position and once back to parking position and after both times of only having the engine on for like twenty seconds, I had billows of smoke.

I guess it seemed crazy that such an expensive well engineered car would do that, and of course I just bought it and craped my pants when I saw the smoke thinking I messed up something when I put in the air filter. But can I just say, after having practically every sports car I can imagine, this one by far exceeds my every expectation. If only I could have had it sooner. Dr Jeremy B

Like I said, this is the characteristics of a flat engine car, has nothing to do with bad engineering. Even the Suburu does this sometimes... In matter of fact it is in all the 911 owner manuals, I can't verify if it is in the 996 manual... but I know for sure it is addressed in the 993 manual. It says something like the car will consume a small amount of oil overtime, because it will seep through the piston rings when the engine is stopped as the engine is flat...etc.... something like that. This symptom is more edvident on the 993s as the cylinders are not symmetricall when cold, it is more of a conical shape. As the engine is air cooled and runs very hot and cylinder expends... so the engineers went as far as to accomodate the heat expansion so that it will be a perfect shape once warmed up.... Now you know why you shouldn't floor the gas when the engine is cold? The tolerance on the 996 is actually much tighter on a cold engine, because it doesn't run as hot so Porsche don't need to factor in the expansion as much. So you don't see the white smoke on a 996 as often. I remember I had to always add in about a quart of oil for every 1000 miles on the 993 because of this.

Jeremy, as has already been said, this is no big deal. Same thing happened to me once and only once at a DE event at Pocono......

Well, hey buddy I can understand your concern. This started happening to me right after buying my '02 C2 Cab used with 18K miles. Happened irregularly but frequently. I am a often spirited, but not abusive driver (but I live at the top of a windy, fun 1500 foot ascent, so hard driving not a lot of cooldown time), the previous driver was apparently an older woman. Anyway, took it in multiple times, had an oil separator replaced once or twice, other remediation and on the third time they put mineral based (non synthetic) oil in to help "seat the rings" better. Three days after that I was at about 3800 rpm on the last hill to my house when the engine apparently let go with a huge plume of white smoke. Never heard the diagnosis -- the dealer replaced the engine with a new one under warranty and she has been running beautifully since. My guess is there was a hairline crack in the block, but who knows... My recommendation (I did this), as paranoid as it sounds, is periodically record your startup on video in the morning in case you need to address warranty issues with the dealer. It helped me, as this problem could not be regularly reproduced. Good luck! Hope it is no big deal...