2008 Nissan Micra Blowing smoke on startup

ROCKINUPTHEBIGSTUFF

MEMBER
2008 NISSAN MICRA
1.4L
4 CYL
2WD
AUTOMATIC
30,000 MILES

My Girlfriend has an issue with her car (which I have not seen yet), basically occasionally it will blow smoke on start up. She believes its a grey smoke and it smells oily. We think its only happens after she has done longer drives 1hr + on her next start up its blowing smoke. It doesn't seem to blow smoke after short drives etc.
It recently had a service (as we just bought it) and does not seem to have to much oil.
I was thinking it might be the valve stem seals but the inconsistency is confusing me.

Any help or ideas would be great

1 Reply

MHPAUTOS

MECHANIC
31,937 POSTS

May well be stem seals, the oil when hot and lays around the seals will leak down over night and pool a small amount on the valve stem and if bad on the head of the valve, when hot, and doing a re start after a short stop not enough oil has made its way done to burn, it will still burn oil hot but in small portions that it is hard to see, a good tell tail is ash deposits on spark plugs as well.