I've had the e53 for 4 months & put some long 1-3 hour drives on her. When I bought her, the oil visible from the cap was sludgy, & thick yellow. I changed the oil right away.Now it's just a thin yellow coat. We have driven her 2k miles since then. 126k miles total.

I'm asking because the smoke was concerning - I thought it was a blown HG at firstsight....

A couple of months ago I had a couple of emissions codes, replaced gas cap & the vapor canister purge valve. These codes cleared.

More recently, Codes that have been present (BM700 BMW scanner) recently are:
intermittent vacuum issue- P0441
8F tank leak diagnoses with DTML /
FA Function check.

These codes were cleared recently & did not return - yet. I suspect there is a small leak in one of the vacuum hoses.

I have BMW Standard tools on my laptop... haven't run ISTA yet to check otherwise- is there a way to test for CCV issues in ISTA?

Could the emissions codes be related to the smoke?

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'02 X5 E53 3.0
'11 328XI E90 N51