Clio 182 - possible problem

[heisthegaffer]

Hello all. I was driving along yesterday in my 2004, 41k miler 182 and after accelerating hard to approx 6500 rpm I glanced in my rear view mirrow and there appeared to be a puff of smoke hanging in the air.

I am very familiar with the exhaust throwing out vapour and that this is normal but it appeared to be grey smoke. I have never known this to happen previously and I've had the car 4 years so I think I would have noticed.

Also, a guy behind me said it looked like fuel so could have been fuel vapour and suggested I get the diagnostics checkerd (thanks to the guy in the Saab for making the effort to talk to me about it, much appreciated!)

Has anyone else experienced this? Would it have happened when I changed gear i.e the flow of fuel continued?

There are no warning lights or anything and I will get it checked.

Thanks

[shalmaneser]

If it's running rich then it'll be dark smoke, a bit like you see coming out of diesels when they boot it.

Get it booked into a garage and get them to run an emissions check, which should give you some idea of the problem. The sooner the better though, because it'll be damaging the catalytic convertor if it's running rich.

if it's running rich it could be a faulty lambda sensor or air mass sensor, but get it on an exhaust sniffer to confirm the situation.