Burning oil - Heavy blue smoke - Please help

[J_K]

Big sense of relief now eh.
Glad it's sorted.

[X5Sport]

Not sure at what point BMW started fitting Catalytic Converters/DPFs to the X5 Diesels. I know my 05 has the former and the X6 something that seems to do both. Next time you're passing a friendly someone with a smoke emissions tester you might want to see what's coming out of the pipe. You may need to get the exhaust proper warm to make sure as much, or all, of the oil residue is cleared so you don't get any oil fouling which stops or reduces its ability to work.

I don't have detailed knowledge of what Cats will tolerate, but I do know oil is one of things you avoid chucking into them, so it may be worth a quick smoke emissions check now, rather than at MOT time...

[Turks]

Hopefully it won't have got as far as the CAT's... you should be ok if the oil was burnt before the CAT's and passed through as gas / vapour in the emissions. As X5Sport says, probably best to get this checked out before MOT time.


Turks.

[knysnamark]

I have a 2003 X5 Diesel , and it has just started smoking. Clouds of blueish white smoke. I also noticed that the first silencer underneath the drivers seat was glowing red hot. Any idea if this is related to the breather filter. It runs smoothly when I start it, but I am not keen to drive it anywhere to see how bad it gets.

[dwgwyther]

Hi Knysnamark I spoke to a friend who used to work for BMW as a mechanic about this the other day and from what I remember he said the cat is blocked if it glows red hot (what you were probably looking at), the one he remembered doing started burning the insulation under the seat (a very nasty burning smell), from what he said you will need to replace the cat as it blocks exhaust gases from escaping causing it to super heat the cat. One point he did say you do not want to be driving it very long at all as it soon heats up and cause the car to catch fire.
Basically get it replaced somewhere close and get it there when its cold.
Hope this helps

Darren