Every couple of weeks the car will start smoking quite badly. A cloud of white smoke will engulf the car for about 3-4 minutes and then go away. It's not the condensation you get in the morning on a cold day either. It could be while I'm driving or sometimes on startup.

About a week ago I opened up the air filter box to check if the filter was clean and I noticed there was about a 4 inch round oil stain on the air filter and there was fresh oil about to drip down from the air intake. Any ideas on what is going on? Any advice would be greatly appreciated, thanks.

P.S. The car has 65k miles on it and I'm about to change the PCV valve and monitor the situation for a while to see if I still have oil leaking out of the intake.

 

Sounds like your PCV may be stuck. The white smoke is usually coolant.

 

The white smoke comes out of the exhaust. That can be from the coolant? What is causing this?

 

Has the car ever overheated before? 4cyl or V6?

 

As a general rule for any engine. White smoke is burning oil. Especially from the exhaust! I seriously doubt coolant has anything to do with your problem. The 3.0 Duratec has been known to have PCV problems. A friend of mine had an MPV with the 3.0 Duratec and white smoke out of the exhaust and I changed his PCV. Problem was solved. I would also change your airfilter now that you had oil on it.

 

Hate to disagree with a fellow 6'er, but blue smoke is oil & white smoke is coolant. He may just have a PCV problem, but I am not sure where you got that general rule from.

-Sheldon.

 

If the smoke smells sweet, then it's coolant and you need a headgasket.

If the smoke smells like burning oil..... Then it's Burning Oil

 

Those are general rules but it doesn't necessarily mean that white smoke means head gasket. There are several things that could happen. Although when I got white smoke on my 06 mazdaspeed6, the turbo had gone out and taken the engine too.

 

Exhaust: white= coolant: blue=oil: black= rich mixture.
Spark plugs: light brown= good: light ash= lean mixture: black= rich mixture or oil.
Wet plug, smells gas= misfiring: Wet plug, no smell= coolant.
White smoke in engine compartment can be either coolant or oil leaking onto exhaust system. When you say "engulfs the car", is this from the tailpipe, engine compartment, where?
Do you park the car in the same place, because a leak can fall harmlessly on the ground in one case, but on a slightly different slope, it can land on the exhaust system; then as soon as things heat up you get your clouds of smoke.
Try putting a sheet of cardboard under the car and see if you can find the culprit that way.

Before the engine is warm, remove the rad cap and cover the rad with the palm of your hand; if you feel pressure pulses, it's probably a gasket. Have you noticed a rise in coolant in the rad overflow reservoir, or drop in coolant level?