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Hi guys,
I'll start from the beginning in explaining what's happening, and try to provide any information that might be useful.
Today, I was driving as usual and as I came out of a light I shifted to second and began overtaking someone. However, as I was doing so my accelerator pedal felt.. sticky maybe (that might just have been a placebo for what the car was doing) and my acceleration staggered, for just a couple seconds and then all went back to normal. However, when I looked in my rearview I noticed my exhaust had dumped a large amount of white smoke. I finished getting to my destination without anything else happening, intending to attempt to diagnose what had happened later. When I got back to my car, I started it up, and was greeted with this
The smoke was white and pouring out in ridiculous amounts. I can't quite determine the smell. However, I drove a couple blocks and the smoke went away completely; I parked and checked the exhaust as it was idling and it was perfectly normal.
Other than the moment I described before, the car has driven the same as usual.
Researching my issue I've seen a lot about coolant seals and this seems possible. However, I could be totally wrong but imagine that would result in a constant smoking? I also haven't seen signs of the engine overheating and the temperature gauge hasn't moved past it's normal ~halfway point. I've not had any dash lights while driving. My coolant light does occasionally come on momentarily, when I rev the car up (around 4k rpm) before turning it off, but never persists.
Some other information that might have value:
I've just hit 3k miles since my last oil change (topped up 1500 miles ago)
My ignition coils and spark plugs were changed just a few thousand miles ago
My car has an OMP adapter
Sounds like a coolant seal. Often the smoking only occurs at start-up since coolant had time to seep in and accumulate. When the car is running, it doesn't have that opportunity.
You could monitor your coolant level or check for bubbles in the overflow tank while it's running at temperature to confirm that. Or take out and read your spark plugs. The coolant gauge is far too insensitive, it doesn't begin to move until 230F or so.
Weird that it burst in a single burst though. Usually coolant seals fail quietly.
02-14-2017, 02:42 PM
