Yesterday morning I was in IA on my way back to CO. When I checked my oil at the hotel in the morning it was just a tad below the lower mark. I would normally put in a 1/2 quart to bring it to the midpoint, but I was lazy and put in a full quart thinking it would bring it near the full mark. A couple of minutes later, it was still reading between the marks and I got on I-80 for the drive home.

After the engine warmed up, I was cruising at about 80 in the right lane when I noticed someone was next to me reading a magazine while creeping by me at about 80.1 mph (idiot). To get away from said idiot, I kicked it up to about 90-95 and established an appropriate buffer zone. I then slowed down to about 85 and engaged the cruise control. About that time, I was climbing a long moderate hill, passing a few trucks. Anyway, I looked in the mirror and saw a good amount of gray (definitely not black) smoke behind me. I backed off and the smoke cleared, no other problems.

Now I'm wondering if I ingested some extra oil that hadn't had time to drain to the pan, or if it was just a good old Italian tune-up. I didn't hurt anything, but I never saw it do that before. Just curious.

Sounds like an Italian tune-up to me, especially if the car downshifted in order to maintain the set speed uphill.

Don't keep running the car with the oil overfilled, though.

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http://webwench.net/albums/new83-300...1700.thumb.jpg
1983 300D-T
348,000 miles

You can't see oil smoke on the highway even if you're burning a quart every 100 miles. That level of consumption is roughly 10 ml per mile. Insignificant.

You're probably right, I guess I just shock some carbon loose, I don't let it see 4000 rpm very often.

The SD does the same thing.........every time that it goes over 4K........which isn't often.

They just smoke once in awhile, nature of the beast.

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1999 SL500
1969 280SE
2023 Ram 1500
2007 Tiara 3200