Blue smoke cloud upon starting 2012 Edge Ecoboost.

[Frisco1522]

I have a 2012 Ford Edge Ltd with the Ecoboost engine.

Occasionally when I start it in the morning, I get a large cloud of light blue smoke out of the exhaust. I have mentioned it to the dealer and they would look at it, but it just does it occasionally. It smelled like transmision fluid smoke. My tailpipes are very sooty also. Car runs good, etc.

In "The Old Days" I would accuse the engine of having bad valve stem seals, but I would think it would do it every time it sat overnight, not just occasionally.

I don't like all the soot inside the tailpipes. A great part of my driving is on the highway and it gets warmed up completely.

My 2009 Ranger has a nice clean tailpipe.

[WWWPerfA_ZN0W]

GDI engines tend to throw out soot (basically diesel engine tech). The PCV system is not the greatest, and there is a lot of crud in circulation thanks to that: fuel/oil/water etc. Sometimes this crud will condense in the intercooler and start showing up when you see the blue smoke. Sometimes it is actually a bad turbo seal or leaky turbo oil line fitting that will cause this issue.

 

So, start by checking all the intake and turbo piping for signs of oil pooling. Check the intercooler also. If there is significant buildup on the back of the intake valves, you likely have a PCV issue. The intercooler can be trained if it has any pooling.

 

You might want to switch to a low-volatility high quality full synthetic motor oil like Amsoil to try and cut down on the vapors present in the PCV system. Also change oil regularly (5K recommended, 7.5K max) to avoid excessive vapor and fuel dilution issues.

 

To get the Soot B Gone solution, you would likely need a better intake design (such as the MDesign for the 3.5 transverse EB), or a methanol/water injection system.