They could not replicate the problem at their shop. I can’t imagine Ford would want one of their new cars smoking like this! Since Ford doesn’t seem to know, do you have any idea of what could be going on here? Love the car, hate the smoke. — Tim
Dear Tim: The dealer is counting on the so-called “alien solution” to this problem ... that aliens abduct you before they ever have to fix this. I’m assuming you can tell the difference between water vapor on cold days and white smoke, Tim.
If it’s white smoke, and there’s enough of it that you can see it, that’s a problem. Most likely, it’s caused by coolant getting into a cylinder or several cylinders, where it doesn’t belong.
If it’s got more of a blue tinge to it, that could be a small amount of oil, which is pretty common these days and less of a concern if it goes away immediately. If it’s coolant, one reason they can’t replicate it may be because they don’t want to. That would require fixing it.
The other reason is that it only happens on cold starts. If you have, for instance, a small tear in your head gasket, coolant would leak into a cylinder after you shut off the car. It would build up overnight. Then, when you start the car in the morning, it would burn up and come out the tailpipe as white smoke.
So, leave the car at the dealership overnight, Tim. Give it a good, long highway drive, and then pull into the dealer lot and shut it off.
Even better: Park it in the dealer’s lot and take the key home with you. Then come back in the morning and ask them to look at the tailpipe while you start the engine. Then ask, “Does that look normal to you?”
If the smoke is, in fact, white and not blue-ish, you can also ask them to pressure test your cooling system. They can pump up your cooling system beyond normal operating pressure and leave it pressurized overnight. If there’s a leak, they’ll find coolant in the cylinders in the morning.
In any case, be sure they document this problem on your service order each time you go in for service so that it’s clear the problem existed during the warranty period.
And take a video of it on your phone. Hopefully, once they see it themselves, they’ll help you out. But it never hurts to have pictures. Good luck.
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