hi Guys. anybody any idea why my L322 2003 TD6 smokes sometimes on start up. not all the time usually when I've driven it somewhere then left it for 30 minutes then restarted. it has covered 117k miles and has been serviced every 10k miles. another forum suggested it could be the depression filter but i can't find any reference as to what it does or where it is.

It could be a deteriorating Turbo. Paul,
2001 Discovery 2 TD5, 211,000 miles & climbing
2006 FFRR TDV8 Vogue 145,000 miles & climbing
Member of Midland (Land) Rover Owners Club, www.mroc.co.uk

it drives and pulls great.

What colour is the smoke? 2012 TDV8 Vogue (L322)

black and grey, only does it for a second or two.

Black is overfueling so could be a leaky injector? Grey/white is (as long as it's smoke and not water vapor) is oil vaporising in the exhaust from a leaky turbo seal.Does it run rough or misfire on startup? 2012 TDV8 Vogue (L322)

Blocked oil line from the turbo to sump. As it happens soon after you stop, it does not have time to drain. When the engine is running there is pressure to force the oil through. If you do a lot of short journeys, the Turbo bearings wear faster, so that is another area to look at, especially as your low mileage suggests a lot of short journeys. Average mileage at the cars age would be around 250k. Your oil changes should have been at 5k intervals to keep down acids in the oil. I would also clean all the engine breather pipes and check the air filters as well. BMW engines do not like stop start driving, and their diesels are designed for continuous high speed cruising, like most diesel engines.

it runs very smoothly. i only do around 10 miles a day during the week. this problem usually occurs when I've done longer journeys then stopped and the car has rested for some time then restarted but not every time.

The fault is low daily mileage as the car never gets hot, when you do the long trips and it gets hot, the faults appear. If you stop the engine after a long journey without letting it tick-over for five minutes the oil in the Turbo bearing carburises, then the hard bits scrape the bearing surface, which is brass, and it gets bigger, and leaks oil.

On a modern (ish) car there is no need to go through the old turbo owners ritual of ticking over a few mins before shutdown. Back in the day before synthetic oils and non watercooled exhaust side turbo housings this was the way. 10 mile journeys are certainly slowly killing your engine and turbo....... 2012 TDV8 Vogue (L322)

Well thanks for all the input, don't Really know how to remedy this as this is the driving regime I have Been doing this for eight years.