to smoke or not to smoke

[gldgti]

well heres a question sure to raise a cross section of answers...

i have always preached the science about diesel soot being not as dangerous as people think it is, and that soot on hard acceleration is almost unavoidable if your going to make really good power. thats just fact.

theres a lot of members here that drive new, green tdi's and do so for the green reason (apart from having a smashing car). theres plenty of member that proclaim they despise soot.... but where do we draw the line?

i have to say that i check in the rear view mirror of my mk3 all the time to see if i'm smoking like crazy while i've got the pedal down, because i do care.... and i know that people get angry when they see it. but when i see a tdi make a puff of smoke at the traffic lights (it does happen, the drivers just cant see it) i smile! i love it!

a agree that an old toyota 2.8 belching smoke on a flat road shouldnt really be tolerated.... but i think people seem to get a bit too antsy about a little smoke here and there.

to top it off, i only use 100% biodiesel in my car anyway, and the smoke is totally different from normal diesel smoke. (smells like a fire in a noodle shop)

i guess the question i'm trying to ask is - how much smoke will we all tolerate? personally, i'm up for tolerating puffs of smoke under acceleration and at gear changes... but not sustained thick smog.