My 2.8 Passat is smoking near the firewall on the driver's side... appears to be directly under the coolent overflow reservoir. Anyone have any ideas?

 

maybe the valve cover gasket is leaking and dripping oil on you exhaust

 

because it's jealous of the Audi and wants more attention






seriously though, I'd go with you have a leak somewhere that is causing the smoke too

 

I know... really, the car has never smoked...

Got the Audi last weekend and the V-Dub has been sitting in the driveway since then...
Someone comes to test-drive & buy her and she starts smoking... WTF?

I pulled the plastics and it does appear that the VC gasket is leaking on the driver's side,
cleaned up the oil sludge around the VC and let her run and it does appear that the smokes is coming from the exhaust...

Should I just let the car run and burn off whatever oil is there?
...or should I spray some engine degreaser down there to try and help break down whatever oil is sitting on the exhaust pipe?

 

It'll burn off after driving it for a while. And it'll keep coming back until you replace the gasket and even then it may still leak (as is the case in my car [:@]).

 

I agree just let it burn.

 

Yeah but he still needs to change the gasket or it's gonna keep right on burning as it continues to leak.