We just bought a 2002 Montero Sport Limited a few days ago in a rushed transaction as part of a long, very stressful journey - never the best conditions under which to buy a car. We made a weekend vacation of our trip to buy the car and when we were driving it home from Phoenix up a big mountain, it suddenly began billowing enormous clouds of what appeared to be white smoke from the tail pipe. We immediately pulled over and shut it down. In checking the fluids, I noticed that the oil was high, the coolant low in the reservoir, and the transmission fluid was a quart low. I topped off the coolant and started the thing up. It wasn't overheating and seemed to run fine, outside of the continuing cloud of white smoke billowing from the tail pipe, so having no other affordable option available, I decided to crawl it up the mountain. The smoking stopped almost as quickly as it started and I drove the thing into town 30 miles down the road without incident. I stopped at the auto parts store, read my manual, and checked the tranny fluid again, added a quart, and researched a bit in some of the forums about similar problems. Since it was dumping rain and cold outside and the vehicle seemed to be running fine, I opted that the smoke was some sort of freak sticking of a valve or some of the excess oil getting sucked into the engine as we were going up the mountain and reasoned that, so long as it didn't overheat or continue to billow smoke, I could drive it the 150 miles I had to get home to my nice warm, dry, and heated garage where I could drain the oil and check it out further. It ran fine the rest of the trip. When I got it home, I ran the scanner, even though I had no check engine light, and, of course, got no codes. There is no oil in the coolant, nor coolant in the oil. Upon closer inspection of the maintenance records, I came across a repair order that was about a year old and 4,000 miles ago that detailed that the truck had been running hot, shifting erratically and making a rattling sound. The inspection report said that the water pump was leaking, the radiator hoses were dry-rotting and that the exhaust manifold had been cracked. The garage replaced the timing belt, thermostat, radiator, water pump, hoses and belts, flushed all the fluids, including the transmission and changed the transmission filter, all to the tune of $1500.00, which supposedly took care of the problem. Four months later, they replaced the cracked exhaust manifold. Apparently, as far as I know, the truck has ran fine since, with the exception of our one episode of billowing smoke going up the mountain. When we got home, I emptied 2 liters of excess oil from the pan and was still a just past the full mark on the dipstick. However, there is a stain on the dipstick, well past the full notch, that tells me that this montero has consistently been run on a minimum of 1 extra quart of oil for some time. I have not had to add coolant in the week that we have had it home and the truck has been running great. What, then, caused that all that white smoke (could have been blue-ish smoke as it was foggy and raining) from the tailpipe? What are the possibilities? I can't seem to reproduce the problem so hope that someone else might have some input.