As others have said what you are seeing is normal.

When I have the O2 sensors replaced on my Turbo last January the tips were almost a white, a very light light grey color. Tech said they looked just fine. (I replaced the sensors because one sensor's heater had failed and with 130K miles on them -- they were original -- they were all due.)

As for the exhaust tips, for every pound of gasoline the engine burns it produces around 19lbs of carbon. Some of this in is soot form. A bit of soot collected at the exhaust tips is normal.

Like I like to say: Soot happens.

 

quote of the day!

agree with everyone all sounds completely normal. the level of obsession that these cars seems to generate within most of us often causes us to look for issues where none exist. i think you may be suffering this malady. i know i do.

my bumper section is regularly covered in a thin film of soot and i rarely other than a bi monthly quick wash bother with trying to eliminate it. i washed my new x50 type exhaust tips i think ONCE after decatting and gave up thinking. this is ridiculous, i drive my car up mountains! wtf am i trying to do here?! it's soot.

i also ONLY use either chevron or shell as we are stuck with 91 here so my personal get even comeuppance is running the decat pipes which are coming off for my testing soon, so it'll have some less soot along with about a -15% commensurate power loss! to go with my temporarily soon to be "cleaner" bumper and tips. a lousy deal if ever there was one.

as macster has just said: "soot happens".

 

I'd love to run 85 and some 16 billets.

 

U can get white exhaust tips, when running high revs and full boost. That happens if u track your car.

 

After a little ride on the autobahn

 

That looks clean compared to an hour of street driving on mine.

 

ha was gonna say.. thats not SOOT my whole bumpers arctic/black lol