Troubleshoot Car Exhaust Smoke

Different smoke comes out from the tailpipe. However, you can tell if there is a problem with your car by noticing what smoke comes out of the exhaust. There are three common variations of color of the exhaust smoke those are white, blue, or black exhaust smoke, these colors can tell whether there is a problem with the car.

White Smoke from Exhaust

White smoke does not often tell that the car is in good condition sometimes white smoke is an indication that there is something wrong with the car depending on when the smoke was detected.

When the white smoke is notice just before the engine has warmed up or during driving a few miles on a cold morning then it is normal. During the night while the car seat in the garage a condensation is formed and will come out the tailpipe when the engine is started and begun to disappear while the engine is getting warm. However, when the white smoke is noticed even when the engine is warm or even hot, then there is something wrong with the engine.

Noticing white smoke from the tailpipe at any engine temperature is an indication of a damaged head gasket. The Head gasket is the one that keeps the water jacket from entering the engine cylinder if the head gasket is damage a small amount of water may enter the engine cylinder this water can become steam and will come out of the exhaust as white smoke.

Blue Smoke from Exhaust

When a car is blowing blue smoke it always indicates burned oil from the engine. However, there are various reasons why the engine burned oil. The following are the main reason:

First, when the blue smoke is accompanied by a loss of power especially while driving uphill the problem is a bad ring.

When the blue smoke is noticeable while you accelerate, then this indicates a bad valve stem seals.

When the blue smoke is noticeable on the car with the turbocharger, the possibility is that the turbocharger seal is leaking. Sometimes, turbocharger seals leak and this can cause the oil to get into the exhaust system which is hot, and then it gets burned. The burned oil will create smoke and funneled it through the exhaust pipe and comes out the tailpipe.

Black Smoke from Exhaust

Black smoke that comes out of the tailpipe indicates that there is too much gas that is being burned from the engine usually this happens when the air/fuel ratio is rich. Several reasons are also causing why there is too much gas burned on the system, and those reasons are:

Clogged air filter, when the air filter is clogged, the air that gets into the engine combustion chamber is restricted thereby causing an insufficient amount of air and too much fuel inside the chamber.

Another reason why black smoke comes out of the tailpipe has something to do with a fuel injection sensor. The fuel injection sensor is the one that feeds data to calculate how much fuel must be injected into every cylinder, if the sensor goes bad a wrong data will be sent into the system thus making the air-fuel ratio to be out of standard thus black smoke will come out the tailpipe. Usually, those sensors are the throttle position sensor, mass airflow sensor, and engine coolant temperature sensor.

Finding what type of smoke comes out of the tailpipe of a car can be determined if there is something wrong with the car, if you know to troubleshoot smoke that comes out of the car then you can identify what causes the car problem which can lead you to a correct and efficient repair of the problem.