The night of the 4th of July I was coming home sitting in the stand still traffic from the rush of cars trying to leave and I noticed some smoke or exhaust vapor coming from my exhaust. The only reason I noticed it was because looking back at the cars I seen the smoke from the headlights behind. That same night its smelt almost like a plastic that is smoothering on something hot. It also reminded me of when I had a new cat put on my old car just after it was intalled. The next morning I looked everywhere on my exhaust and there was nothing on it. Just last night I was at my sisters house and my bro in law noticed that when the car is in gear it smokes. We dont think its antifreeze due to the smell and the color of it. I had it in park and he checked it as I reved the engine and it did nothing. Its only when its in gear and driving. Any ideas. Plz tell me its something minor. Could it be that my cat converter is goin out??????? plz help....P.S. the car has 99147 miles on it and its an automatic GS if that helps anybody.

 

odd question but do you have the a/c running?

 

stock exhaust or cat back??

 

Nope

 

The car is bone stock

 

the 420a has 2 big... well 3 flaws from the factory. First is the lack of a baffle system in the oil pan, second is the week internals, and thrid is the head gasket. From the factory they were only tq'ed down to the area of 80lbs, where you can go as high as 100 on the stock studs and 120 on apr studs( do not reuse studs!!!!!!). It could be a bunch of things, only way to tell is to run some tests. First I would suggest a compression check refer to your haynes/chiltons manual for you car. IF that checks out okay then i dunno but depending on the results of that it could be the piston rigns or the headgasket which leaks from behind cyl. 1 (piston closest to the drivers side).... or it could be your valve seals. Honestly I wouldent worry too much about it if it only smokes a little bit. Its time to worry about it when your crop dusting or you notice a substansual loss of oil between oil changes.

 

could it possible be that i'd be running to rich or lean for some reason??? I dont know how that could be since its stock but i dunno. It does have a SMALL small small oil leak. If I let it sit for all day and all night i will have a small spot of oil under it. Not sure where its coming from but its done that ever since i've owned it which has been about 6 months or so now. Thought maybe i could have been leaking on or into the exhaust somewhere but i dunno. I just dont want it to be anything serious cuz i just bought a house and it needs a new furnace so i have no money.

 

YEs that leak is the infamous 420a hg leak, its nothing to worry about, the smoke is deff not from running too rich(trust me on that one) chances are its your rings or your valve seals.... most likley the valve seals