Hey, all- hoping someone can shed some light on this- LR's going to mechanic Monday but I'm very curious and very stumped...
Our 2005 LR3 (128k, fantastic condition- checked over by 2 mechanic friends- no crossing fluids, no leaks, no issues with performance) blows out kind of a billow of white smoke (or is it steam?!) for just a few seconds right after starting... It clears and doesn't persist and has no particular noticeable smell... I've read about 1000 possible answers to this but almost all of the other inquiries seem to involve other issues- ours has none.
Thoughts?!

 

Sounds like valve stem seals to me. The oil will drip down the valve stem as it sits after shutting engine down. And when you fire up the engine, it'll burn off the oil then run lile normal.

 

Initially I thought the same... but since we've noticed it isn't consistent (sometimes starts with no smoke at all) and there are random intermittent misfires now happening... we're starting to think it's something ignition system or fuel system related. Also there's absolutely no oil smell, which I know from past experience is hard to miss.
Damn euros and their intermittent crap. Pain in the ***. I stopped buying them now my husband started. Ha ha ha.
Thanks for your input! Should know in a few days what's really going on- goes to import specialist tomorrow.

 

Did you ever get this figured out?

 

We had fuel injectors cleaned and it seemed to work- for about 12 hours...but they weren't taken out to be cleaned so they weren't inspected... now leaning toward a bad sensor, coil or injector because of the issue being intermittent. Dealers mechanic seemed basically useless and was kind of an ***, so we're just taking it on ourselves with the help of some mechanic friends... time to start shooting money out the cannon at parts, I guess... :/

 

Dam, does the cloud of white smoke linger or clear away quickly? Have you been loosing any coolant without visible leaks?

 

It's very odd. Sometimes it behaves perfectly and doesn't smoke at all... when it does, it smells mildly of fuel- not sweet like coolant or like burning oil. And it only smokes for maybe 3 seconds when it does... it'll linger a bit but not for long. The idle also likes to flicker between 800-900 rpms when you start it, but only for about 5 seconds then it levels off. No noticeable loss of any fluids- levels are not dropping any time they've been checked. I've researched quite a bit and found about 100 different possibilities, many of which don't hold water because it is not constant and isn't losing or crossing fluids...

 

Have you cleaned the throttle body?

 

Good question, I mentioned this to my husband last week but can't remember if it was done. I'll check into that also! Thanks

 

Well, oil was low today and smoke was plentiful... yanked pcv... chock full o' oil... so I think we may have our answer... weird how there was no burning oil smell... but it had started smoking under certain driving conditions and randomly misfiring.