Dear All,

I am new to this forum and also to BMW's. 3-4 days back on my BMW Compact 316ti 2004 the emissions exhaust deteriorated light came on dash and car started to give smoke.There is no loss of power but the tailpipe shows some oil in it and the cars suddenly gives fumes when idol. when its running smoke is less or maybe due to motion its not seen. Oil level is also going down slowly. Can anybody please give me an idea as what is going on with this car. Though I will get the code read soon as I get the time. One more question, is it safe to drive car with this smoke?

Thanks in advance,

Sohaib.

Sounds like its either valve stem seals, oil-way/pipe/circulation blockage or worse case scenario the pistons/rings...

Failed gasket would also cause this

Thanks a lot for your reply Mister Dabsy :)

I got the code read by a friend today and it is : P0420 Catalyst System Efficiency Below Threshold Bank 1 (https://www.dropbox.com/s/6t9s80wg2b0goxi/BMW%20error%20code.JPG?dl=0)

Can you please interpret it keeping in view my car's above mentioned condition. And btw smoke emission has decreased in past two days. Though it is there but significantly less.

Thanks for the help,

Sohaib H.

Hi,

The code you have given is relating to the Catalystic converter which will indeed moan with the symptoms you are showing.

The symptoms are mechanical so reading the OBD won't really help. It's going to need investigating to find out where the oil is getting in contact with teh combustion gasses. The places you need to first start looking are the places layed out by Dabsy above.

Let us know if you need help

Daz

Hi Daz ;)

Hi Sohaib, as Daz mentioned, the code-reader will give you "Results" of the problem and it seems your Cat has been contaminated by too much oil/carbon... It should also show a shitload of other codes too such as Lambda, emission and knock...

The thing you need to know is if theres no oil on the floor then the motor is pushing oil through the cylinders, which means a rebuild of some kind :(