Having Car Issues. Help?

concealer404

mhmacw wrote: »

well there you have it OP you better listen to the 23 year old with the 700$ chevette. im sure his experience tops all the rest.

Lol!!!





Man, i wish i had a Chevette.

AudioGenics

The 50 Worst Cars of All Time
As the North American International Auto Show kicks off in Detroit, TIME and Dan Neil, Pulitzer Prize-winning automotive critic and syndicated columnist for the Los Angeles Times, look at the greatest lemons of the automotive industry

http://www.time.com/time/specials/2007/article/0,28804,1658545_1658533_1658523,00.html

1976 Chevy Chevette
... include the Chevy Chevette only to note that even the most unloved and unlovely cars have their partisans. There are Pacer fan clubs and Yugo fan clubs, and if there is a Chevette fan club, let it begin with me. My girlfriend in college had a diaper-brown Chevette three-door hatchback, as bare bones as an exhibit at the natural history museum. It had a 51-hp engine and a four-speed manual transmission and not much else. It was loud and it was tinny, but we drove that car across the country three times and it never failed us. Once I got a 85-mph speeding ticket in it. That was on the down slope of the Appalachians, but still. The last time I saw that Chevette it was still plugging along. Vaya con Dios, old paint.

tryrrthg

OK, definite cloud of smoke when I started my car up after work today. from what I could tell from my side mirror it was light in color, white, probably some blue in there. I was too busy yelling and swearing at my F'ing car. :mad:

Jstas

tryrrthg wrote: »

OK, definite cloud of smoke when I started my car up after work today. from what I could tell from my side mirror it was light in color, white, probably some blue in there. I was too busy yelling and swearing at my F'ing car. :mad:

White is coolant. Bluish-gray is oil. Gray is unburnt fuel.

Sounds like a mix of coolant and oil.

Probably a head gasket.

Which one, not sure, gotta pull the plugs and see which are gunked up.

Hopefully nothing else is toast.

It's gonna piss you off though. Head gasket kits aren't that expensive. But labor is usually 3-4 times the cost of the head gasket kit.

nooshinjohn

If there is one head gasket, my advice is to replace both. Also check the heads for warpage and cracks before puting them back on or the true cause may be missed.

tryrrthg

so would you guys advise that I take it right back to the dealer or keep going on this 1000 mile experiment?

EDIT: I don't get smoke everytime I start the car up. I watched both times I started it up yesterday and there was nothing.

nooshinjohn

Keep going...
but watch the level yourself and document what you observe both on the stick and from the tail pipe. When you go back, insist on a compression test of all cylinders. I think head gasket of damaged head is likely based on the new information you have provided...


John

Jstas

I don't know what the test is going to tell you at this point. It seems pretty clear to me what is going on.

Honestly, the longer you go without getting it fixed, the higher the risk you run of destroying the engine completely.

You can keep your test going if you wish but I would get it fixed as soon as possible once your test is done after that.

If your problem starts to progress during your test, I'd take it in immediately.

As far as where to go, if you've been having it serviced by the dealer, I'd raise hell with the dealer. They should have caught this months ago if it's been drinking oil like you say. I think you said you've had oil changes elsewhere though. But if it's out of warranty, shop around. Actually visit the shops you are inquiring about so you can see the operation. A scuzzball shop likely has a scuzzball owner. Thee cheapest price is not always the best price either.

If it is head gaskets, getting both replaced isn't really THAT necessary. But if it's a VVT-i engine, it likely is an interference engine. You might need to do the timing set with it. But the full gasket set, you're looking at about $250-$300 for both head gaskets, a valve cover gasket kit, an intake gasket kit and new head bolts. The head bolts are stretch bolts and can't be reused.

Doing the second gasket likely won't cost you extra because all the labor costs are in top end disassembly. Once you get to the point where you can get one head off, the other is merely another 10-20 minutes of undoing head and exhaust manifold bolts. It doesn't really buy you anything except piece of mind. The head gaskets can pop any time for any reason. A new one doesn't necessarily alleviate that.

Hopefully the heads aren't damaged and you won't need a new one because they are $700+ a pop. If the block is cracked or anything, well, we already went over that.

I'm not trying to scare you or anything. I'm just being honest. I worked for a boss who would flip out on me if I started going down options like this with customers. He said not to do it because I scare them. But everyone thanked me for the honesty and laying it all out there. I've got nothing to win or lose here. I just don't want you to go in unaware and an educated customer is a better customer. If you know what's going on and what you need to ask about, you can get much better service.

mhmacw

so it is smoking....:rolleyes:

well put jstas. you risk catasrophic failure if you continue driving the way it is. there is nothing to gain by waiting yet there is a lot at risk.. if you are goin to off it do it now if you are going to keep it fix it now before this issue causes larger ones.

Systems

tryrrthg wrote: »

so would you guys advise that I take it right back to the dealer or keep going on this 1000 mile experiment?

EDIT: I don't get smoke everytime I start the car up. I watched both times I started it up yesterday and there was nothing.

Did you try what I suggested, letting it idle for awhile and then punch it...

tryrrthg

Lorthos wrote: »

Did you try what I suggested, letting it idle for awhile and then punch it...

yeah, did that the other day, but that was one of those times it didn't smoke one bit.

AudioGenics

Hard To Find Leaks
There are a couple of other ways of locating an oil leak. The method of choice among professionals is a florescent dye and an ultraviolet (UV) light. This dye will work with all types of fluids, oil, transmission fluid, fuel, coolant, and A/C refrigerant, and makes spotting a leak pretty easy. When seen under the UV light, the dye glows a bright greenish/yellow that can't be mistaken for anything else.

for article see :
http://autorepair.about.com/od/otherodddiyjobs/a/findleaks_2.htm

TNRabbit

tryrrthg: When you started the car today & it smoked, was it accompanied by a loping idle for the first several seconds, like it wasn't running on all cylinders?

TNRabbit

DUDE--I just realized: tryrrthg stands for Try Replacing RighT Head Gasket!!

LAWL~

(Sorry, I had to do it!)

tryrrthg

TNRabbit wrote: »

tryrrthg: When you started the car today & it smoked, was it accompanied by a loping idle for the first several seconds, like it wasn't running on all cylinders?

Not sure, like I said I was too busy swearing! :(:mad:

EDIT: I may have noticed that at some point this week though...

nooshinjohn

With regards to replacing both head gaskets, I personally would not take the risk of replacing one and not the other. There is not much more work involved in doing both, and if you are already replacing one with the milage you have, do you want to take the chance of having to do the job twice when/if the other one is not to far behind? Nobody can say for certain, maybe they had a bad batch of gaskets, but I would not want to open the engine up twice if it were my truck.

joeparaski

See if the garage is equipped to do a "blue test", this will confirm if the head gasket is the problem. What is a "blue test"...it looks like an over sized eyedropper with 2 compartments. In the lower compartment is a blue liquid, the radiator cap is removed and the "eyedropper" is pumped to siphon coolant vapors from the radiator. If the liquid turns yellow, the head gasket is blown. Not sure if I explained that correctly, but we do this test on suspect engines and it is quite accurate.

Joe

Joe

sucks2beme

If its a head leak, a compression and/or cooling system pressure check
should show something pretty easily. If it's going through that much oil,
it should stick out like a sore thumb. What are you waiting for?
IT's going through oil. Take it somewhere other than the lame **** dealer
and get it handled. I have no idea what they expect to see after a 1000 miles.
Oh engine, heal thyself? That only works for throttle problems!
There's nothing really more to learn here. The test Joe suggested might
also be in order. But about half an hour with a mechanic with his head
not up his arse should give you a pretty good idea what's up.

Dominion

I just talked to a ASE certified mechanic friend of mine that used to work at a Toyota dealer and he said this was a common issue on that year and model and a few others. Toyota used some faulty head gaskets on some of these and is not willing to admit it and issue a recall. This might or might not be your problem, my advise is take it to a really good reputable shop and get diagnosed and fixed, you could damage it to where you need a complete-rebuilt/new engine if you keep running it as is instead of just head gaskets. If theres a liability I would deal with that later but you should not be having those types of problems with only 60k miles on any engine. my 2 cents

TNRabbit

Update??

tryrrthg

Not really.

I took it back to the dealer over the weekend and told them I had seen smoke a few times during startup. They couldn't replicate the smoke any of the times they started it up (it is inconsistent for me also). still no signs of an oil leak, no signs of oil sludge. They don't think it's a blown head gasket (not sure of how they verified that - they said they did not find a drop of oil around the head gaskets). At this point they said they don't want to charge me a bunch of money to tear the engine apart, they want me to continue with the oil consumption test and see how that shakes out. They said keep an eye on the oil level as I go. if it drops way down then I bring it in and they will start tearing it apart...

still crossing my fingers that it was all a damn fluke. the oil level has not gone down one bit in the 100-150 miles that I have put on it since they changed the oil at the dealer.

nooshinjohn

tryrrthg wrote: »

Not really.

I took it back to the dealer over the weekend and told them I had seen smoke a few times during startup. They couldn't replicate the smoke any of the times they started it up (it is inconsistent for me also). still no signs of an oil leak, no signs of oil sludge. They don't think it's a blown head gasket (not sure of how they verified that - they said they did not find a drop of oil around the head gaskets). At this point they said they don't want to charge me a bunch of money to tear the engine apart, they want me to continue with the oil consumption test and see how that shakes out. They said keep an eye on the oil level as I go. if it drops way down then I bring it in and they will start tearing it apart...

still crossing my fingers that it was all a damn fluke. the oil level has not gone down one bit in the 100-150 miles that I have put on it since they changed the oil at the dealer.

Time to find a different dealer...
There is no way in HELL they should be discussing tearing it down unless they identify a cause. A compression test and a leakdown test is called for at this point.

Find someone willing to take the time to diagnose the problem rather than play a waiting game until you blow something up.

Jstas

The head gasket doesn't have to leak outside the engine for it to leak. It's not uncommon for the sections between cylinders or between coolant and oil gallys to break and cause issue. It could be leaking on the intake side as well and you won't necessarily see that leak either.

Anyway, the dealer knows about it and it's documented in the service write up. Hold on to your paperwork from that visit and do like they said, continue with the test. If the engine goes bad during the test, it's on them.

tryrrthg

nooshinjohn wrote: »

Time to find a different dealer...
There is no way in HELL they should be discussing tearing it down unless they identify a cause. A compression test and a leakdown test is called for at this point.

Find someone willing to take the time to diagnose the problem rather than play a waiting game until you blow something up.

how much tearing down of the engine to they have to do to do the compression test and leakdown test?

also, what the hell are those tests? and how do they go about doing them?

concealer404

tryrrthg wrote: »

how much tearing down of the engine to they have to do to do the compression test and leakdown test?

also, what the hell are those tests? and how do they go about doing them?

Remove the spark plugs. That's about it.

mhmacw

jstas wrote: »

the head gasket doesn't have to leak outside the engine for it to leak. It's not uncommon for the sections between cylinders or between coolant and oil gallys to break and cause issue. It could be leaking on the intake side as well and you won't necessarily see that leak either.

Anyway, the dealer knows about it and it's documented in the service write up. Hold on to your paperwork from that visit and do like they said, continue with the test. If the engine goes bad during the test, it's on them.

exactly!!! Put the paperwork in a safe!

TNRabbit

"There is no way in HELL they should be discussing tearing it down unless they identify a cause. A compression test and a leakdown test is called for at this point."

Absolutely.

thsmith

TNRabbit wrote: »

"There is no way in HELL they should be discussing tearing it down unless they identify a cause. A compression test and a leakdown test is called for at this point."

Absolutely.

Just do it, TNT and others have said it several times. It is the only inexpensive way to know.

Jstas

Ya know, a leak down test and a compression test won't necessarily show a bad head gasket. Anyone who has attempted to race a small-block Chevy engine will know this.

If the head gasket breaks near an oil galley and it is leaking in to the intake, engine compression could very well not be affected. However, the engine will still burn oil by drawing the oil leaking into the intake in to the engine.

I actually agree with the dealer. The reason "At this point they said they don't want to charge me a bunch of money to tear the engine apart," may be a lazy reason but considering the customer's financial concerns, it is a prudent reason as well. At least he has the dealer stating that they know there is a consumption test in progress and they did advise him that if oil consumption becomes prevalent to immediately bring the vehicle in for service. Also, I promise you that the service appointment was logged and is in the service records for the vehicle.

The biggest issue I had was continuing the oil consumption test without notifying a mechanic or dealer what the situation was. If the engine goes bad during that test, it's all on the owner. If the engine goes bad on the dealer's test, it's the dealer who now has to at least discount the work since the owner brought the vehicle in for concerns to be addressed.

Krazyz1

Pull the valve covers and see if you have any broken head bolts. I seen this on a ford Tarus v-6. Same deal had multiple head bolts pop. Thankfully above the block for easier removal.