I have a 2004 Discovery with only 43300K miles. I've only had the vehicle for a couple of days, and noticed there is a very noticable puff of white smoke following a cold start. I've also noticed that it idles a little rough when it's cold.

No warning lights are on. How bad can this be?

 

Keep an eye on your coolant level, mark it with a pencil (when it is cold) and see if it is getting lower (when cold). Could be your head gaskets which could be a big deal depending if you can fix them yourself or have to pay out the nose.

 

Where do you live?

 

Lipad, thanks for that advice, I'll mark it right now and keep and eye on it.

Spike, I live in Spokane, WA.

 

Should I mark it when cold, then drive it, or just leave it standing several days and watch the coolant level?

 

Just drive it as normal and check the coolant level every other day when the engine is cold.
If the level drops below the mark you made you have a leak.

 

drive it. what you are looking for is if you are losing any coolant while the engine is running. if you have a bad head gasket water gets into the oil. check your oil on the dip stick. if it's milky you need to replace the head gasket ASAP. keep a eye on your temp gauge until you determine if your losing coolant or not.

 

Mark it cold and then check it every morning before you start it up and see if the level is going down for a week or longer. Also note that since it is winter you will see more "smoke" (steam) coming out of the pipe until the engine warms up. Also does the exhaust smell sweet like coolant when you first start up? If the smoke puff has a bluish tinge you could have some oil leaking past the valves. Keep an eye on the oil level (check it cold when you check the coolant). Welcome to the world of Discos.

 

Dont forget it could be a valve stem seal. It would be best to have some one else start the truck cold and you put your nose at the tail pipe and take a big wiff of the white cloud. Anything sweet smelling... coolant..... anything else...oil.

 

Before I drove it today I had my wife start it while I waited at the tailpipe. About three seconds of just air, then a puff of white smoke that did not smell of coolant. Since I don't make a habit of sniffing car exhausts I'm not sure if it smelled normal, or oily. After a couple of seconds it goes back to "normal" looking exhaust.

Could this be some sort of automatic choke that is making the fuel richer in order to start in cold weather?

I checked the oil before starting it and it was at the full mark, and looked nice and clean, not milky at all or even dirty.

I did notice a coolant smell while I was at a drive-through though...would write it off as my imagination but my wife smelled it too.

Tomorrow morning I'll check the coolant level, and will continue to do so the rest of the week. At least until I can get it checked out at our local dealer.

Thanks again everybody for your advice/input!