Hello Members,

This weekend I decided to hand wash my '11 C63... I started the car and exited my garage to place it in the position that I wanted it to be in. The car moved back and forth about 30-35 feet, maximum. I shut the car off. I did not notice any smoke coming from the exhaust...

I washed the car, to include polishing the beautiful exhaust tips with a chrome cleaner. It took me about 90 minutes to wash/polish the car.
All appeared well...

As soon as I started the car, to drive it into the garage, I noticed quite a bit of white/gray smoke exiting the tail pipes. WTH!!!

I can only surmise that having started the car and having only moved it 30-35 feet, the car had excess gas/oil in the engine. Upon start-up, the excess gas/oil burned, causing the smoke???

The car has been babied/proper break-in, during the first 850 miles that I currently have on the odometer.

Any insight? Is this normal? I've owned numerous hi-end German cars, and I've never experienced this before.

Tks, BB

 

Don't sweat it. I know it is shocking the first time you see it but believe it or not it's normal!! When it happened to me, I backed out to washs the car and shut it off. A couple of guys from the neighborhood came over to check out the car. I proudly started it up to show off the great exhaust notes and about killed everyone with the smoke cloud!!! Just a little embarassing and I was pissed--thought the car had a major problem. One of the guys had a friend who is a AMG master tech in Houston so he called. The tech said it happens all the time with the AMGs it has to do with loose valve stem clearances when the engine is cold. When you start it it blow the oil on top of the stem seals. If you then shut it off the oil will seep down the cold seal. When you restart you get a nice big cloud of white/blue smoke. He said it happens all the time when they move cars in the shop. So just figure it's part of owning a race/street engine.

 

Glad someone posted this. I've had the same thing happen several times on my new 2011 and was starting to worry.

 

Mine has done that under the exact same circumstances...

 

My friend Jeff M, had some advice about this from the AMG PL.
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Spot on, you nailed the differences right there, dissipates; condensation, hangs; smoke. Even coolant burning will hang longer than condensation but not as long as rich fuel/fuel+oil mix/oil (and coolant burning will stink!).

Your smell assessment makes perfect sense too, as does the smoke; rich fuel mixture left over from a cold start/immediate shut down, start back up cold again. An engine needs quite a bit of excess fuel to start, then run at first when the combustion chamber is cold, takes a little time before the fuel can be leaned back to what most would think normal. During cold start, fuel does not burn well, one main reason for excess fuel needed during cold start, and cold start-up running. Quality combustion cycles are poor (direct injector to the rescue!) when cold, extra fuel ensures there is enough combustion to keep the engine running or at least having enough power to not stall when put into gear. With all this fuel richness also doing a bit of rinsing the cylinder walls of some oil (another subject) and just being plain “rich” on the fuel side, the emissions are nasty, and a big reason we have cats (2 per side with at least the M156), to collect the excess fuel and oil mix/mainly just fuel once warm, to later burn off when the exhaust temps are hot enough to light-off the cats and get them doing their job. If you start your engine cold, then shut it off, then start it again, you now have cold starts x2 and the cats can only hold so much, best thing for the cats, but much more so for the engine, let the engine idle while you are washing it, let it get up to operating temp, it will keep you from the rich running problems with an engine, and get rid of condensation (and rich fuel mixture blow-by) that is also collecting in your engine oil, which are the worst things about running an engine for a brief amount of time, or miles. Letting an engine warm up, and driving it to accomplish this was all news to everyone at some time including me, so don’t let it bother you that it’s news to you for now, no one is born with all the information we need to know

 

Plus 1, Its not just on AMG powerpants, my ML did the same thing last week. I started (cold start) and drove it several feet back and shut it down during cold start, two hours later I started her up again to drive forward and had a nice cloud of smoke.

 

I think it looks great, keep it.

 

^^^ Thanks a lot, Jim07 & Yuille36. Great responses/info. Much appreciated!!! This forum rocks!

 

It happened to me too. I'm glad I know the reasons now.

 

Your right it isn't just a AMG specific issue.

 

Same happens to me - MB C63 AMG 2012 coupe, 1000 miles.... starting to be worried but read a lot of blogs and looks like is normal !! the "beauty" of driving a street car with a race engine............

 

+1 Good to know. I was wondering why mine did that the other day.

 

Mine never had white smoke.

 

Hi,

Very helpful info here. Will mercedes try to fix the problem?

I just bought a c 63 amg 507 edition with 200 miles, 2013. Every now and then on a cold start you get a cloud of bluish white smoke... I gave the car to mercedes as i only have 1000 miles on it and i would not even expect this on VW polo. They could not find any problems with the car and never had a compliant like this before. So i am back at square one....

Any suggestions on what i can do??

 

So I too have a new 507 and have run into the big white garage filling smoke cloud on two separate occasions. There are a few/several posts about this. With exception to this thread, most say "you definitely have issue, problem and is probably coolant related". With my limited knowledge coolant leak seemed possible as it does produce white smoke. So at 3300 miles I did my own oil change and sent is a sample to BlackStone with the specific request to look for Coolant or Fuel in the oil. NONE! said everything looked fine and that breakin was probably just wrapping up on the engine. Man was I relieved. Report showed slightly high metal content (meaning above avg.) which they said was normal due to this being the Break in Oil Change. Anyway, hope this help other owners rest easier knowing that the issue appears to be %100 normal or at least to this engine.

 

Before my C63 I had a 2011 C300, did this quite often.

 

Mine did this for the first time Sunday. Had a tail wind so it dramatically blew over my car. Fortunately I had read about it so I wasn't as freaked out.

 

Some good knowledgeable answers here. Got worried about this as well. Yesterday gave it the start up after 3 days or so and as usual cloud of white smoke. I immediately ran into it to inhale it (crack addict lol) and tried to smell for any "sweet smell" but nothing. Had more of a mixture of little oil and more strong fuel smell. I guess that's due to my cats being non-existent. Thanks once again for this thread.

 

Same here washed my car today after about a hour I turned it on and seen white smoke go worried
I was gonna take it to get checked out but with all the info I read seems like it’s a normal thing with these cars

 

If it happens once in awhile, then don't sweat it. Both if it's a daily occurrence then have it checked out.