allenst

some background.
my 2004 has been running very hot for a few months.
temp is ok according to guage
fans come on.
for the first time I noticed a spot on concrete driveway dripping from the passenger side (right side) of the oil pan. It is NOT oil though. it is coolant. it is coming from above the oil pan and dripping off onto the oil pan then on to ground.

I still loose a little coolant on occaission. I say on occaisson becasue I can go sometime before noticing a drop, then suddenly a drop from the Max line to the Min line.

for first time I've noticed a light, almost clear, grey smoke coming from below at back of engine. it seems to be a little heavier from below driver side but does come from below in back. the amount of smoke is like you blow a match out but not that white and thick really.
it has a light burnt smell.
it does not smoke when care is warm and parked. it smokes after a ride.

I am wondering what is below and back there and what might be the source of smoke.
last observation is from cold start , withing 45 seconds, if I spray some water down behind there I get a ploom of steam. So something is getting hot, real fast, down there.

mishar

Coolant is dripping from the oil filter/oil cooler housing. You can fix it by replacing o-rings which is very nasty job, or by pouring some Stopleak in your coolant.

Back there is exhaust and smoke is most likely some oil leaking on it from valve covers.

I am not sure what do you mean with engine running hot if your gauge shows regular temperature.

allenst

makes sense. when I saw the puddle on driveway I noticed that it wasn't as pink as the resevoir coolant and it had a kind of greasy whitish look to it. the leak seemed to be dripping at a rate of 1 drop per 10 seconds.

what I mean by 'hot' is that the car just seems to be very very hot as in a lot of heat emenating from the engine, but that the temperature gauge reads
normal and the fans come on. so I'm just assuming the thermo is ok.

MP4.2+6.0

+1 on those most likely answers.

To other dialog:

W/ secondary air injection, cold fuel richening and forward cats, it gets hot fast--as designed. Reaches cat light off--which I think is something like 800 degrees--w/in about 2 minutes. Forward cats are intentionally pulled close in to motor for light off, which concentrates more heat there when car is sitting.

As coolant burns off, you get more whitish pink residue and less liquid, hence what you may be seeing if the residual drips have first been exposed to heat.

Greybeast

Wow, Stop leak into the cooling system? Is that a wise decision? You know far more about Audi than I, but with every other car I've owned that was the utmost LAST resort. It does a great job of clogging things.
Mike

mishar

It is last resort. Replacing those o-rings begins with "remove the engine". It can be done with engine in the car but not much easier. Besides that it won't clog anything. On top of that 2004/6 are old cars even if we love them.

Mister Bally

Nothing wrong with loving an old car. Especially an A8. Plus, driving it into unusually high number of miles helps you save funds for a more ridiculous replacement vehicle
R8

mishar

Or sailboat.

MP4.2+6.0

That too, but you gotta take your autosig picture and overlay an (upside down??) hull silhouette on the D3 to complete the mental image. Of course the go forward vessel needs to be righted so maybe the car tilted over...