White smoke coming out of exhaust

[VRTrooper]

I 'm experiencing some white smoke coming out the tail pipe of the car and some coming from the bottom of the engine area, like something being burnt. I've checked my coolant and oil levels and they're fine. Decided to take it to shop nearby and they said the piston rings were broken and the car was leaking oil badly(I've never seen any oil leaked from the car at all), they said it'll be 1200-1300 to replace, decided to look for a second opinion.
I have not experienced any overheating at all with this. Nor do i see signs of a broken head-gasket. no creaminess of the oil or anything. oil looks like black coffee. I've researched it on the internet, can it be burnt transmission fluid?


car:2006 Nissan Sentra 1.8s

 

[olds]

Does it smoke all the time or does it stop after it warms up?

 

[VRTrooper]

since the problem started it smokes all the time now, problem started on friday. I live in Miami, so i know its not the cold weather.

 

[olds]

Sounds like coolant. Since it just started, I'd keep a close eye on the coolant and oil. Could be blown head gasket, cracked block, etc.
Rings wold be blueish/gray smoke.
Double check all vacuum lines just for gp. I know a guy that had a smoking honda and iirc, it has something to do with the booster on the brakes. Too long ago to remember exactly.

How's it run otherwise?

 

[VRTrooper]

Sounds like coolant. Since it just started, I'd keep a close eye on the coolant and oil. Could be blown head gasket, cracked block, etc.
Rings wold be blueish/gray smoke.
Double check all vacuum lines just for gp. I know a guy that had a smoking honda and iirc, it has something to do with the booster on the brakes. Too long ago to remember exactly.

How's it run otherwise?

it runs fine besides the white smoke. but the coolant levels are still the same level tho. and i don't see chocolate milk color from the oil dipstick.

 

[lsd]

Does the smoke have a smell? Coolant has a sweet smelling smoke while oil will smell pretty nasty and have a bluish tinge to it.
You need to take it to another shop, it's impossible to diagnose over the internet. The shop should be doing a leak down test to confirm it's bad rings.

 

[VRTrooper]

Does the smoke have a smell? Coolant has a sweet smelling smoke while oil will smell pretty nasty and have a bluish tinge to it.
You need to take it to another shop, it's impossible to diagnose over the internet. The shop should be doing a leak down test to confirm it's bad rings.

I honestly can't tell if its sweet. it smells kinda like burnt nutmeg.

and I didn't see the shop perform any tests, the took it to the back of the shop, while i sat in the office. so who knows.

 

[lsd]

Burnt nutmeg? I don't think I've ever smelled that. Is it offensive at all? burnt oil is pretty nasty, coolant is much less so.

 

[VRTrooper]

Burnt nutmeg? I don't think I've ever smelled that. Is it offensive at all? burnt oil is pretty nasty, coolant is much less so.

thats the best i can describe it. no its not really offensive. it smells like something but I don't know if its sweet.. but if it was coolant wouldn't the fluid levels go down tho?

 

[lsd]

Yes it should but vary on how big of leak it is though. When your car is cold open the radiator cap and see if any oil is on it and in the radiator.

 

[VRTrooper]

Yes it should but vary on how big of leak it is though. When your car is cold open the radiator cap and see if any oil is on it and in the radiator.

I haven't seen any oil in the radiator.
I haven't checked the trans fluid.

 

[lsd]

If you don't see anything in the radiator you don't have any transmission leaks to the engine.

 

[VRTrooper]

shrugs...seems like those piston rings..then..I'll take to another shop tomorrow.

 

[phucheneh]

'Broken' piston rings are pretty hard to diagnose. That would imply the engine has fairly major compression issues (one or more cylinders is contributing way less power than the others) and they've done wet/dry compression tests and hopefully also a leakdown test to ensure that the compression is not exiting through a valve or into the cooling system (or into another cylinder).

Because 1) it is much easier to reach a conclusive diagnosis on something like a blown head gasket or bent valve, and 2) I personally would never even volunteer a 'damaged piston rings' diagnosis, but rather, tell the customer simply that I had done testing to eliminate the top end of the motor as a culprit, and explain that the next step would be to tear the engine down for inspection and likely short block replacement (or rebuild, but most places won't take that liability).

My suspicion is that the shop hooked air up the cylinder, opened the oil cap, and said 'I hear air rushing out! Rings!'

...in reality, even a brand new engine will audibly leak 120-140psi shop air into the crankcase.

And their estimate is VERY low. If I ONLY replaced the needed parts (no timing chain, water pump, or other 'while I'm in here' parts), I could easily see a quote for parts/labor JUST a head gasket job costing over $1000.

For your $1300, I would assume they are talking about a used engine. And a cheap one, at that. Random guess, engine R&R for that books at like 10-12 hours. At a $75/hr labor rate, there's no way they'd have no more than $500 to spend on a junkyard engine. Yards specializing in running engines with some kind of warranty...well, they charge a premium for that.

 

[MongGrel]

White exhaust usually has meant to me you have water getting into your combustion areas.

Unless it's a newer thing and emissions related somehow.

You used to see that with cracked heads, or engine blocks, or seal leakage on the heads maybe.

At least the oil in the crankcase looks ok, that's good news.

Just offhand I'd suspect a head gasket myself, like Olds and phucheneh brought up.

 

[thedarkwolf]

Pull the spark plugs out. If one is super clean you have a blown headgasket, if one is super filthy you are probably burning oil like crazy.

 

[CurseTheSky]

Is the smoke primarily coming out of the tail pipe, or from beneath the car? If the smoke is mostly from the engine area, something is probably leaking down onto the exhaust / hot engine part and then vaporizing or burning. You could have a very slow coolant leak from your water pump, coolant line, heater box, or something similar. It could also be brake fluid, power steering, transmission, or even wiper fluid - I don't know what color smoke they'd give off, but it's worth looking into.

 

[VRTrooper]

Is the smoke primarily coming out of the tail pipe, or from beneath the car? If the smoke is mostly from the engine area, something is probably leaking down onto the exhaust / hot engine part and then vaporizing or burning. You could have a very slow coolant leak from your water pump, coolant line, heater box, or something similar. It could also be brake fluid, power steering, transmission, or even wiper fluid - I don't know what color smoke they'd give off, but it's worth looking into.

primarily from the exhaust pipe, with a little from below the engine.

 

[Meghan54]

I wonder if someone is messing with you.....only say this because I've seen auto. trans. fluid poured into someone's gas tank that produced the same, exact symptoms--white smoke out the exhaust.

Or it's water, like everyone else said. Water = white, oil = blueish, too rich = typically black

 

[VRTrooper]

I wonder if someone is messing with you.....only say this because I've seen auto. trans. fluid poured into someone's gas tank that produced the same, exact symptoms--white smoke out the exhaust.

Or it's water, like everyone else said. Water = white, oil = blueish, too rich = typically black

don't know, but before i started experiencing the problem, i had just put gas in the car, so maybe when i was driving home the trans fluid kicked in?!....dont know. but something is burning at the bottom of the engine and i can't figure out what it is. i don't have any tools to check the spark plug.

 

[twinrider1]

I thought it meant we had a new Pope.


heyooooooo. Mmthenkyouthenkyou.

 

[RLGL]

What car? What year? what engine? How many miles? Need details..............

 

[CurseTheSky]

What car? What year? what engine? How many miles? Need details..............

It's all in the original post.

 

[VRTrooper]

What car? What year? what engine? How many miles? Need details..............

all that info is in my original post. it has 123k miles on it.

 

[Warfighter]

Leaking head gasket possibly.