Every time I start my Max in the morning I get a plume of black soot that screams out and eventually after 5 min goes away....could this be the start of bad rings?! Any other ideas will be greatly appreciated.

-LIEB-

 

Sounds like you have a lot of carbon built up. If the smoke was blueish (oil) or white (antifreeze) then I would say you had a major problem. When was the last time you cleaned out your intake? Checked PCV valve? Do some regular maintenance and then shoot a response back. Also see if your EGR system is clogged.

 

Goes away "after 5 minutes"!? Hmm. It doesn't sound like rings to me. If rings are worn out, you can see this when the car is fully warmed up, let it idle and then when you boot the loud pedal you'll see a puff of blue smoke.
However, the way to be sure is to do a compression test on your cylinders with/without the oil squirt.
What your problem sounds like, to me, is oil getting into the combusion chambers due to worn valve guides. If so, you're going to need to take the cylinder heads off, replace the guides, recut and grind the valve seats, replace valve springs and seals. I've done this work myself except for the recut, which is a shop job. But do the comp test first.

 

"What your problem sounds like, to me, is oil getting into the combusion chambers due to worn valve guides. If so, you're going to need to take the cylinder heads off, replace the guides, recut and grind the valve seats, replace valve springs and seals. I've done this work myself except for the recut, which is a shop job. But do the comp test first."

If it was worn rings or valve guides, don't you think the smoke would be blueish? Plus, it wouldn't just go away from simply letting it idle -- in fact, letting it idle would allow more oil to sneak by the valve guides/seals. The black smoke he is referring to sounds like something is stuck closed like the EGR valve or possibly the intake needs to be cleaned out. Maybe the catalync (sp) convertor is getting plugged up. I'm all for running a compression test if he is experiencing a loss of power, but he hasn't mentioned that. No use running unnecessary testing IMHO.

 

Black smoke is fuel. Leaking injector maybe. Seals-up when it gets warm.

 

Yes you're right, I forgot about the smoke colour. Damn. Good idea.