[jamba]

So, yesterday I took a semi hard U-Turn. Not wreckless by any means, but harder than normal. After I came out of the turn, white smoke stared blowing out of my hood. I pulled over and recorded it both with engine on and off. After some searches, I saw that valve cover gaskets are a common issue. I did see some oil around the compartment. I don't think I saw that oil before. After I let the car cool down, I turned it on and nothing. No burning smell, ran just fine, no codes, etc. I drove home then went out again around midnight and did some spirited driving on the freeway. Ran like normal. No issues.

This morning, turned it on, no oil on the floor, nothing. Drove to work, no issues whatsoever. Anyone have ideas as to what this could've been? If VCG, any ideas what the going labor times are?

Here are the engine off and engine on vids

[Mike.]

I had a similar problem.. It turned out to be the Shaft sensor and the Valve cover gasket failing

[jamba]

Any ideas what it cost to replace?

eccentric shaft sensor is completely unrelated to smoke, you just have a common valve cover gasket leak, the engine is titled towards the passenger exhaust side, so when it leaks it drips onto the hot exhaust manifolds and creates smoke, eventually it will get worse.

A good rep indy shop out here in Socal would charge you $350 for the replacement, expect to pay 3 times that at the dealer all labor the gasket itself is inexpensive.

[jamba]

Thanks index1489

I figured it was a VCG...I'm going to try to get that done sooner rather than later.

Update: drove it for an hour in stop and go traffic in DC. No issues yet.

[fravel]

You might have a slight VCG leak, but I'll offer up another scenario since you mentioned that it happened after a U-turn. I'll assume you were turning left?

If you pull the beauty cover off the top of your engine you'll notice that there are a bunch of nooks on top of the valve cover. If any oil is spilled during an oil change it will pool in these little nooks. What happened was that you turned the car hard enough to cause some of that oil to splash out of the nook and drop down on your exhaust manifold, producing the smoke.

I had the same thing happen to me about 4 hours after I did my oil on the BMW for the first time, was driving myself crazy trying to figure out what I screwed up.

From the very short glimpse I got in your video it seems that the oil is coming from above the VCG, which also supports my theory. Just stuff some paper towels down in those nooks after you pull the beauty cover off and soak up some of that oil.

[jamba]

I got an oil change a couple weeks ago so that for sure could be the case. I'll check it out tonight. Thanks

[jamba]

And yes, the hard u turn was indeed a left