White smoke is water vapor, but unless there is only water in the cooling system, you will also smell glycol.

Huge clouds of white smoke on startup that turn black upon warmup is very low compression or serious injector problems.

Peter

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1972 220D ?? miles
1988 300E 200,012
1987 300D Turbo killed 9/25/07, 275,000 miles
1985 Volvo 740 GLE Turobodiesel 218,000
1972 280 SE 4.5 165, 000 - It runs!