Power loss and white smoke

[alan cordeiro]

It may be time for a new head gasket, the white smoke sounds like the
early symptoms. Has the car ever had the head gasket replaced?
With high boost (the chip) and 190k, it sounds about time for the
original to give up the fight.

Are you starting to blow coolant out the top of the coolant reservoir
when you drive it hard (hi boost repeatedly)? 


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "George Fairbanks" <fairbanks at cmu.edu>
To: <200q20v at audifans.com>; "George Fairbanks" <fairbanks at cmu.edu>
Sent: Monday, April 10, 2006 8:45 PM
Subject: Power loss and white smoke


> Hey guys,
> 
> I'm hoping that one of you can help me diagnose a problem I'm having. 
> I've got a trustworthy local mechanic but he's not a 200 expert, nor 
> even an Audi specialist.
> 
> A bit of history -- probably three years ago I started the car on a cool 
> morning and, for the first time, it put out a puff of smoke out the 
> back.  Since then the car has had a stinky exhaust when first started 
> after sitting but it passes emissions just fine when warmed up.  My 
> mechanic guessed that some oil was making its way past the turbo and 
> being burned off when first started.  The car hasn't been using a 
> noticeable amount of oil.  I've been getting an indicated 1.7 bar of 
> boost for a few years now instead of 1.8, but haven't been bothered 
> enough to look into fixing that.
> 
> Some of you might know this car as it's Greg Amy's old car.  It's been 
> running without incident for the past five years here in Pittsburgh 
> while I'm working on my phd.  It's got 193k miles on it now and I 
> believe Greg's had the chip in there since about 100k miles.
> 
> This past weekend I was accelerating hard (honestly, I don't do this 
> often as I'm stuck in Pittsburgh, the city of potholes and I have 
> cracked one rim here already) and heard a funny noise coincident with a 
> dip in power.  The noise was sort of like a "grunk".  When I restarted 
> the car about an hour later (I did let the car cool down before parking) 
> the car put out enough whitish smoke to really scare me.
> 
> When the smoke went away after a couple seconds, however, the car ran 
> fine for the rest of the day and for the return leg of my road trip (240 
> miles).  Gas mileage on the trip was normal too, 27 mpg on the highway.
> 
> I have heard this grunk noise a couple times before but had chalked it 
> up to mid-grade gas when the chip requires high octane, but was only 
> half convinced it was premature detonation.  Now I really don't think 
> that's it.
> 
> Any ideas on what the problem could be?
> 
> Thanks in advance,
> 
> -George
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