WORRYING EMISSIONS

[neil4030]

On starting from cold my 1098 Traveller emits quite a bit of dark coloured fluid from the exhaust; sufficient to require wiping up off the garage floor. Other wise the engine runs perfectly smoothly with no other symptoms. Might this be something for me to worry about?

[Chris Edgar]

Just a mixture of water & soot!
One of the combustion products of petrol is water vapour. When the exhaust system is still cold/cool, it condenses & mixes with the carbon deposits in the pipe.
Once the exhaust is good & hot, it just comes out as vapour
Nothing to worry about.

[bmcecosse]

Push the car out the garage before starting up............

[Biggles1957]

Dont a lot of OAP's get the occasional worrying emission..............?

[JOWETTJAVELIN]

It happens to modern cars aswell, water pours out of the exhaust, it's called the warm-up cycle.

Problems start when the cycle is not followed through on a regular basis (and this doesn't mean OAPs visiting the bog hourly ). All you need to do is make sure the car gets a run after it's started or push it out of the garage as BMC says.