Smoky Exhaust

SCOTT CAMERON

MEMBER
2013 CHEVROLET SILVERADO
V8
4WD
AUTOMATIC
97,500 MILES

If I drive my truck on the highway, even for as little as 10 miles, then let it sit for an hour or two, the engine will spit out a significant amount of blue smoke at startup. There is no other smoke visible at any other time. Any ideas about what it could be?

1 Reply

KASEKENNY

MECHANIC
18,907 POSTS

Hi,

Blue smoke, as I am sure you know, is oil burning in the combustion chamber. This is normally caused by failing piston rings or valve guides or seals allowing oil into the cylinders.

However, let's start with checking the oil. If it is low, then fill it to the proper level and then mark it on the dipstick so that we can see how much it drops in 1000 miles.

Then drive the vehicle 1000 miles and check the oil. Just make sure you check it periodically before you get to 1000 miles in case it is burning quickly but with it only smoking at start up, I don't think that will be an issue. Once you see where it is on the dip stick, fill it back to the line and record how much oil it takes to get it there. Then we know how much it is burning.

The point of this, is it is going to burn some oil. The fact that you can see some smoke at start up MAY be normal for you age of engine.

If you can get a video of how much smoke is coming out when this happens will help understand the severity of the issue.

Here is a guide that takes you through the common causes of oil burning but again, once we know how much oil we are burning, we will know what type of action to take.

https://www.2carpros.com/articles/blue-smoke-from-engines-exhaust