Why does my car keep kicking out lots of white smoke?

My Vauxhall Vectra has started kicking out LOTS of white smoke. Then nothing for days and then smoke again. The water level is dropping slowly but performance is all good - the engine temp has always been either 0 degrees or 90. The oil is black and the water is clear. Any ideas?
White smoke is indicating that the fuel being injected into the cylinder is not burning correctly (the smoke will burn your eyes). The reasons for this are:
- engine/pump timing out
- fuel starvation to the pump causing the pumps timing not to operate correctly
- low engine compression
- water/petrol in the fuel

We would suggest that you carry out a compression test /sniff test to ascertain the head gasket condition
Answered by Alan Ross on

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