One blue puff of smoke every morning at first start of the engine

Maintenance/Repairs
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1

I have a 2003 Toyota Camry LE, Mi 107,000. Well maintained, following the maintenance schedule manual.



Lately, every morning I see a puff of blue smoke coming from the exhaust tail pipe. During the day nothing else.



What may it be? Is it bad? I want to keep that car for long time. What should I do. I need help.



Thank you very munch.

2

I have had the same with my '96, 140,000 miles, no change for years. Probably a small amount of oil seeping past the valve guides. If you are not seeing any significant oil consumption, I wouldn’t worry about it. How many miles between needing to add oil?

3

The smoke is probably from worn valve guide seals leaking oil into the combustion chambers as the vehicle sits. This is really nothing to worry about as a lot of engines will display this brief smoking on the first start of the day when they the get into higher miles.

One thing to try to see if it’ll eliminate the smoke is, on the next oil change add a high mileage oil such as Valvoline MaxLife. These oils have additives that recondition the seals to eliminate oil leaking past the seals.

Tester

4

I concur with Texases and Tester. This is likely oil leaking past the valve guide seals when the car sits and is nothing to be concerned about. It’s normal for an aging car.

You should, however, monitor your oil usage. You may be pulling a bit of oil past the seals when you decelerate too, as that’s a very high vacuum condition in the cylinders, but it’ll be dispersed into the air at an amount you’ll probably never notice.

5

I had a 95 Geo Prizm (Toyota Corolla Clone) a while back that did the same thing. I asked a mechanic friend and he said that it’s normal, particularly with older Toyotas. Since then I never let it bother me anymore.

6

Thank you everyone for your help. My oil does not go below the lowest level (on the oil stick) between the oil changes.

Garigari

7

This happens to a lot of cars. My V8 Impala did the same thing at 180,000 miles, but since oil consumption was very low, we never bothered to fix it. My son drove the car to 0ver 300,000 miles before selling it. Even then it was only a minor puff each morning, and the comprssion test showed near new figures.

If oil consumption increases, or the smoke gets more frequent, your car may not pass emission tests, if that is an issue where you live.