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Hey guys,
So my 1.6l, 99 Mazda protege is blowing a lot of white smoke out of the exhaust when I start it in the morning and after work. So pretty much whenever it has been standing for a while.I showed it to a mechanic and he told me right away it’s a broken head gasket.
Does it necessarily have to be the head gasket or could it be something else?I’ve been keeping an eye on the coolant and oil and they don’t seem to be going down for now. Also the oil itself looks ok so I don’t think any coolant is getting mixed in there.
How can I be sure what exactly the problem is before I spend all my money on a big repair like that?
Thanks!
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In cold weather its normal to see white smoke. If your not
losing coolant or oil sounds normal. Does the smoke ever clear?
Two things you could do. pressurize the cooling system or do a
block test.http://www.ericthecarguy.com/faq/what-to-do-when-your-engine-overheats
Hey thanks!
Yeah no it doesn’t look normal at all. The smoke blows for about a minute and there’s a big bad smelling cloud going down the street.I actually close the fan when I start the car now because it blew inside the other day, which wasn’t fun haha
I took a video if anyone is interested.
I’ll look at how to do these tests.
If anyone has any other suggestions please let me know.
Thanks a lot!
Ok I just double checked the fluids and now I can actually see a difference. I think I’m losing oil, coolant and power steering fluid!
I’ll top it up and then I have to go for a little drive. I’ll see how it looks after.Does the smoke smell sweet? Does it have a slight blue hue to it? I also suggest do what collegeman said those checks are really definitive. Check the levels mark the coolant with a marker and mark the oil stick with a file just 3 passes enough to put a mark but not enough to do anything else then wipe it off and put the stick back in. Check it the same time the next day. I suggest doing it in the morning. If either one is lower then the mark you know which one is going down. You may need to check it every day for a week before you notice a difference. After a car sits it can accumulate moisture in the tail pipe which then turns to steam when the exhaust hits it but, if it is leaving a cloud and it smells it is most likely not that. If it smells sweet it points to coolant, if its blue smoke its normally oil but, can possibly be fuel.
I had the same experience with my Toyota Fortuner 2005 128k odo.
Thick white smoke upon startup, and continuous white smoke when running.
This isn’t normal, brought it to Toyota Dealer.
Replaced Piston Rings, Head Gasket and some injectors.
Could be coolant leak, Gasket leak, Piston Rings leak or dirty injectors.
Have it compression check first.
Thanks for all the help so far!
So I got an appointment at a dealership, because I don’t really trust the small mechanics that I’ve been to so far.
I’ll discuss the block test, compression check etc. with them and see what they find.
Does the smoke smell sweet? Does it have a slight blue hue to it? I also suggest do what collegeman said those checks are really definitive. Check the levels mark the coolant with a marker and mark the oil stick with a file just 3 passes enough to put a mark but not enough to do anything else then wipe it off and put the stick back in. Check it the same time the next day. I suggest doing it in the morning. If either one is lower then the mark you know which one is going down. You may need to check it every day for a week before you notice a difference. After a car sits it can accumulate moisture in the tail pipe which then turns to steam when the exhaust hits it but, if it is leaving a cloud and it smells it is most likely not that. If it smells sweet it points to coolant, if its blue smoke its normally oil but, can possibly be fuel.
It smells sweet and seems to have a blue hue.
Let’s say it is a blown head gasket though, do you think it’s worth replacing? I know it’s a big job and really expensive and I read that the leak can mess up quite a few things in the engine.
Maybe it would be better to replace the whole engine in that case.Oh btw, it started smelling pretty weird when I turn on the heater. Is that in any way related?
My Rendezvous does the same thing. I read that if it goes away when the car warms up, then don’t worry about it, but mine drips a lot of water out of the tail pipe to the point there is a puddle under it. Are you loosing coolant (do you need to add it more than occasionally)? If yes, you have a seal leaking. Has the car been tuned-up recently? An out-of-tune engine will burn fuel inefficiently producing smoke / odor and may be more pronounced when first starting the car.
If it does it only on start up, if the exhaust smells like burning oil and the engine oil level is slowly going down your engine has leaky valve seals. Engine oil seeps through the seals while the engine is off and at start up this oil is sucked into the combustion chamber and burned.
If this is the problem then it is also burning oil when running but at a slower rate. The exhaust plume may not look blue at all even though this is oil that is being burned.
Hey thanks for all your help guys!
So I got my car back from the shop and they found a blown head gasket, broken valve stem seals, leaky oil sensor and a bunch of wires that are almost done.
So it looks like I’ll be getting a new car, because I really don’t think it’s worth it spending a ton of money on that car. I mean beside all that it does have a good amount of rust so it won’t last forever anyways.
Anybody have any suggestions on buying a used car? Are there brands etc. that I should keep away from?
Thanks!
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