What color is the smoke?
Bluish - oil being burnt
White - on startup and cold weather this is normal, but if it happens continuously its often an indication that coolant is being sucked into the combustion chamber
Black - overly rich mixture
Assuming your smoke is a bluish color, that would in mean oil is being consumed, especially if you notice a quick usage of oil. Such as a quart every 500 to 1000 miles.
Worn valve guides would show themselves with blue smoke at startup but not during normal run time. Worn rings generally show themselves with blue smoke during normal engine operation, especially during hard acceleration.
This may sound like bad news, but there is an excellent way to test for bad rings. A normal compression test doesn't really give you a good picture, but if you are able to do a cylinder leak down test, that will give a good indication of the health of each cylinder.
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Sunday, June 17th, 2007 AT 5:54 PM