Thanks for the feedback. I was surprised at seeing blue smoke because the car never smoked before (except for light water vapor at startup on cold days).

The car consumes perhaps 1 qt of oil every 2000 miles. I never see any drips on the ground either. I've been the owner since the car had about 160,000 miles. It now has 200,000 miles. The engine hasn't been rebuilt to my knowledge. When I first acquired the car, I had the timing chain, guides, tensionner, and water pump replaced for about $1,600.

I drive about an equal mix of freeway and city, both conservatively and aggressively. I sometimes mash the throttle but never see smoke, either at acceleration or deceleration.

It's been a very well behaved car as you can see. it's only when I hit the steep uphill roads to cross over the grapevine that I noticed a fairly obnoxious amount of blue-gray smoke coming from the rear of my car. I'm fairly sure it was coming off the tailpipe, not because of leaking oil dripping on hot exhaust manifold parts.

I do think there's something about the "tilt" factor of the car on an uphill path. It doesn't smoke under heavy loads on flat roads but it did on the uphill. I am not sure if it means to the condition of the head.