Hey, I recently purchased a 97 Camry with about 105K miles. Worked great when purchased but took it to dealer to have the timing belt and water pump replaced. Still ran great and took it to Colorado and back to KC. Now I've got white smoke blowing out on cold starts. Anyone know what this might be? Head gasket?
Thanks, Greg
valve guide seals
"computer" wrote in news:21e3a$431dcb9b$4088d8bc$ snipped-for-privacy@EVERESTKC.NET:
My 96 Camry with 145k miles runs fine and has been blowing a puff of smoke at cold start-ups for the last 80 thousand miles. I believe this is a common problem no? But is it serious? -Don't know.
Same problem with my '99 starting at about 50000 miles. Am watching the oil level and the coolant level to see if I can tie it down because it's very hard to tell whether this single puff is pure white smoke (coolant) or slight bluish tinted (oil). Smell doesn't help because initial puff is pretty foul anyway. If oil, I think it is the recessed valve design which allows any excess oil that gets past the valve seal to only leak into the cylinder. Had same thing happen with my '87 Camry but only after about 150000 miles. Am now trying 10W30 oil instead of 5W30 to see if that affects anything.
Allan
A blown head gasket can send coolant into the cylinders. But a more common problem is the valve stem seal(s) going.
Are you losing coolant? oil? For starters you may not see any drop in the levels and compression/leak down tests may not show it at this stage either. But an oil analysis should tell you if there is coolant in the oil.
Hi,
It could be an Oil Sludge problem, you can do a search on "Oil Sludge" and Toyota . Camry 4 cylinders 1997-2001 can have this problem. Here are some links I have found:
My 87 Camry, 96,000 miles does the same thing. In the summer I use 10W30 and this helps alot. I just put in 5W30 for the winter and it is worse now. Of course it has gotten very cold here yet. Should be better when the temp drops below 0. The manual recommends 10W30 for summer and 5W30 for winter.
Andy Arhelger
Allan wrote:
Camrys normally produce white 'smoke' on start up on cool mornings. Unlike smoke it dissipates quickly. It's only water vapor. It will disappear within a couple miles as it warms up. Other efficient cars as the Acura models also have this 'white smoke' on start up.
Rick
computer wrote:
No its probably not a head gasket, no it is not water vapor, no it is not sludge either. Change to a high mileage type oil on your next oil change and it will slightly swell the valve seals stopping oil leaking into the cylinders overnite. I did this at 60,000 miles no smoke since, now at over 200,000 miles in my 97 Camry 4 cyl. Rob
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