Smoke :(

UK Auto - 85k miles on the clock

Driving into work today and it was pure hell, miles of traffic jams and progress was slow, normally it's a pretty good drive in at a steady speed.

Anyway whilst stationary I noticed a fair bit of white / blueish smoke coming from the exhaust at times, usually when the air con kicked in, and a bit of a whiff of fuel when the wind brought it past my window.

The car boosts up nicely normally, the AVC-R shows 1.2 bar when it gets chance but normally the car is driven sedately on my 10 mile trip to work and back each day with very little input from the turbos.

It's due an oil change, coolant was changed a couple of months ago and there are no signs of contamination (although it was dark when I checked so I need to have a better look) - turbos make the usual noises and feel as strong as ever.

Do I have a problem or one on the way? What do I need to check to diagnose things better?

What's the worst and best case scenarios? Does my VISA card need to worry?

Joy

Smoke, while stationary is normally a sign of the turbo seals going.

Did it clear once going??

No sign of any smoke once moving but I had put that down to it being harder to spot as it was getting spread into the atmosphere.

In your lunch break, take it for a quick spin if possible, get it to running temp, then let it idle for 10-15 mins and see if it does it. I had them go on a old Nissan Silvia, so bliming embarassing sitting in traffic

you/someone needs to follow it, see whats happening. black or blue smoke? rich is black smoke.

early failing turbo seal signs r usually smoking ltblue/white on vacuum (no throttle).

u could check the black flexi pipe from the turbos, see if there's an excess of oil in there. check the plugs and make sure they r nice and buff. quick compression check and if thats all ok and it doesnt smoke on startup its probably turbo seal on the turbine side.

Thanks for the input, I didn't have a chance to have a look at lunch time unfortunately so I'll try and do some tests and checks tonight.

If it is the turbo seal(s) what sort of impact is my wallet likely to suffer?

if the turbos r in spec u may get away with a reseal, £150 iirc not including labour and gaskets.

may get away with a heavier oil, what u using at the moment?

Originally posted by eyefi

if the turbos r in spec u may get away with a reseal, £150 iirc not including labour and gaskets.

 

may get away with a heavier oil, what u using at the moment?

Pardon my stupidity on this one but are we talking turbo rebuild type stuff here then? It's a gasket in the turbo unit itself rather than one between the turbo and something else?

For oil I'm just on whatever Toyota put in at the moment - they have done my last two 3000 mile oil changes and I've not needed any oil in the meantime - I think they use Shell - actually I'm ashamed I don't know this, I'm usually more on the ball!

I was planning to go back to my old favourite - Chevron 5w-40 fully synthetic this time around.

The turbo assembly needs to be stripped down to get at the oil seals, and rebalanced when it's put back together.

Originally posted by Adam W

The turbo assembly needs to be stripped down to get at the oil seals, and rebalanced when it's put back together.

So now might be a good time to explore the possibilty of some mild turbo tweeks then... or to sell the car.

Actually Adam it looked a lot like your avatar this morning, just minus the manual gear change and skid marks

was it chugging smoke while stopped or did u come to a stop and a cloud blew by?

Originally posted by eyefi

was it chugging smoke while stopped or did u come to a stop and a cloud blew by?

I was sat in traffic for ages, it was stop start for about 5 miles - on 50% of the times I came to a stop smoke would come out of the back, sometimes a little bit, sometimes more - I could see it in the mirror, it was like when you have a cold day and the car is warming up - onky the car was already warm

It seemed to happen as I stopped but then when I'd been stationary for a while it came out then too, I'll pay more attention on the way home and maybe I should join the AA!

I don't want to drive home, I'm stressed!

it could just b oil weight. if it is turbo oil seal its no big deal, its just embarassing and will get worse. better treated soon than later.

On startup mine smokes sometimes, depends on how cold it is! It's probably nothing and just the cold weather. The fuel smell might just be a bit of over fueling?

Paul

Smoke on start up is normally valve stem oil seals, we blame the weather for alot of things, but worn seals its not responsible for

Nick,

I was wondering when the sig file was going to accomodate a new car - lmao "retail therapy"

Gaz.

Well I drove home, traffic was lighter so I got my foot down a bit and stopped a few times to check for smoke - just noticed it once on a 15 mile trip, still a potent petrol smell though.

Got home, parked up and left the car running for 10 minutes while I watched for smoke - none at all, blipped the throttle to try and make it smoke.... first time I've heard the NuR outside the car .... no smoke.

Went to IKEA on the Motorway, lots of boost then took it steady, parked up.... no smoke.

So I got a little bit on the way home tonight but then none at all - a huge contrast to how it was this morning.

I'll take it easy, do a lot more looking at the weekend and get the oil change done while I keep researching hybrids, any extra input in the meantime would be appreciated though

Sounds similar to me mate.

For some stupid reason I allowed Toyota to service my car, the oil they use is too thin. This was when the smoking started.

Did an oil change myself and put Valvoline 5w 50 back in, which is what I had in there originally. Problem solved

You may still get a little smoke if the seals are worn, but it won't be so bad with the thicker oil, worked for me.

Originally posted by Gaz Walker

Nick,

 

I was wondering when the sig file was going to accomodate a new car - lmao "retail therapy"

 

Gaz.

Picked it up today, PMSL....it's gonna have to stop now though or I'm going to have to rob a bank

Didnt think giving up the ciggies would be so expensive

Daily update - took usual route to work - no smoke.

Have you checked for signs of a charred corpse of something that crawled up the pipe for a kip.:flame Dev

LOL funny you should say that, I haven't seen the neighbour for a while

No smoke on the way home tonight either... fingers crossed!

I obviously didn't keep my fingers crossed long enough

Can I ask that anyone with even the slightest interest in helping out a fellow Supra owner has a look here and gives me some feedback.

I've checked the intake pipes (the ones I could get off anyway) and there was a tiny amount of oil in there, less than I'd expect on a car of this vintage - the oil cap has a slight emulsion on it and the underside of the coolant cap had a weird gritty brown coating on it.

Toyota were supposed to have changed my coolant a few months ago but only charged me for one 5L of Forlife and didn't do a great job of the rest of the service so I'm wondering if they actually did - it's certainly not red like it should be anyway, more of a light brown which indicates it's old. How long does it take for Forlife to go from red to brown usually?

As you can see on the pics there is oil on the top of the turbo heat shield and around some of the hoses, there seems to be a lot on the back and underside little round thingy (sorry I've no idea what it is) pictured here - could it be coming up from below there - this seems to be the edge of the heat shield area. (What is the round thing BTW?).

So now I'm looking for a garage I can trust in the Leeds / Bradford area - chance are I'll take it to a mates place up in the dales though, he's a good mechanic and he's honest - any input in the meantime would be great though. I need the car to get to work so I'm pretty stuck if I can't drive it.

And lastly how safe am I driving the car like this? Obviously it's not idea but I need to get it to a garage etc so will I be OK with taking it 50 miles?

Very p*ssed off, already very poor and wishing I'd bought something else at the moment

The little round thing is the factory BOV, wouldn't of thought that would be the issue.

From the photos that smoke looks just white, is it bluey smoke that you're getting?? Apologies as I haven't read the first page of this thread:innocent: .

Ben..