smoke at startup

[Stunnd]

I get a nice sized puff of smoke out the exhaust at startup, usually after the car's been sitting overnight. What is causing that? Is oil settling somewhere where it shouldn't be? I switched to synthetic about 6 months ago. Could something have happened after that? I've heard of synthetics removing deposits that were acting as stoppers for oil leaks, but that related to cars in the 80000+ mile range. Mine's got 56000.

[volvoex]

What color smoke? Blue means oil, black is fuel and white is usually water vapor. Older engines that have dried up valve stem seals puff blue smoke on start but mostly a warm engine. Black smoke any time generally means a super rich fuel mixture with the associated crappy performance. White smoke is water vapor mostly but white smoke all the time is a sign of a leaky head gasket or worse. My comments are very general in nature and may or may not apply to specific engines.

[Stunnd]

definitely not black....looks white but could be faint blue, not sure...just passed inspection though so it must not be that bad...thanks

[volvoex]

That's kind of the rule I follow. If the car gets through the emissions test, all's well. My state has such low standrads that even my old Dodge truck that puffs blue at every warm start passes very nicely every time.