Blue smoke, white smoke, black smoke all of these can assist you to diagnose possible engine problems?
Lets start with the most common smoke the dreaded BLUE SMOKE. If you are a seasoned BKM seeing blue smoke coming from the exhaust tail pipe instantly puts you in a bad mood as you know that blue smoke is no bueno.
Blue smoke most of the time means the engine is burning oil. How the oil is being introduced into the combustion chamber is the main question for the initial diagnosis. Is the blue smoke heavy and consistent? Is it only at the initial start up? Under load? These are some of questions you need to ask before you can determine if the oil is being introduced by worn piston rings or by worn valve stem seals or from a leaking turbo? etc In general, blue smoke all the time is worn piston rings. Blue smoke at initial start up is worn valve stem seals and really heavy blue smoke is a bad turbo. This is a simplistic diagnosis but a great place to start.
White smoke is an indication the water/coolant is being introduced into the combustion chamber possibly through bad head gasket. etc
Black smoke is a good indicator of the possibility that fuel is being dumped by either a bad injector, bad carburetor and engine chocked for air etc
These are the very basic thoughts about the causes of smoke at the tail pipe but good starting points for narrowing down the point of what diagnosis avenue you need to take to get the answers the customers is asking for.
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