nicholas Posted March 10, 2009 Share Posted March 10, 2009 I live in Edmonton and it's freezing cold, -38C tonight! Anyways, starting up my vehicle there's a lot of exhaust. More than I'd expect. It goes down a bit after the car warms up but still there's a lot more than I feel comfortable with. I'd like to say it's just the cold, but I am also getting terrible mileage outta the thing. Moreover it smells a little like gas. I had a saab with blown head gasket problem and this isn't like that, for one the smell isn't there and it's not overheating (though it's probably impossible in this cold). Filled up with coolant tonight and I'll keep an eye on the level. Also smoke billows like crazy when I rev the engine, could it be something to do with timing? The internet sorta seems to think so. I really need to investigate further, but this terrible gas mileage is worrying me. It's a 91 V630E Pathfinder. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
94extreme Posted March 10, 2009 Share Posted March 10, 2009 check both the oil and coolant for mixing.. are you losing coolant? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
beastpath Posted March 10, 2009 Share Posted March 10, 2009 Mine too has a lot of white exhaust fumes on colder days until the engine warms up. It could be just condensation in your pipes making it do that. If it is a head gasket failure the coolant will get into the oil. The glycol in anti-freeze is what makes it smell sweet. Take a whiff of the fumes and if they are sweet then you know what the problem is. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GrimGreg Posted March 10, 2009 Share Posted March 10, 2009 With the poor mileage and gas smell in the exhaust, you might want to check the MAF and O2 sensors one of those could be faulty causing you to run rich. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
morpheus Posted March 10, 2009 Share Posted March 10, 2009 I live in Edmonton and it's freezing cold, -38C tonight! Anyways, starting up my vehicle there's a lot of exhaust. More than I'd expect. It goes down a bit after the car warms up but still there's a lot more than I feel comfortable with. I'd like to say it's just the cold, but I am also getting terrible mileage outta the thing. Moreover it smells a little like gas. I had a saab with blown head gasket problem and this isn't like that, for one the smell isn't there and it's not overheating (though it's probably impossible in this cold). Filled up with coolant tonight and I'll keep an eye on the level. Also smoke billows like crazy when I rev the engine, could it be something to do with timing? The internet sorta seems to think so. I really need to investigate further, but this terrible gas mileage is worrying me. It's a 91 V630E Pathfinder. With -38C weather, I'd expect a lot of exhaust smoke. I wouldn't get too worried, unless you are having some of the other symptoms of a blown head gasket - lack of heat - coolant level dropping - oil level rising and/or turning milky Also, the colder it gets, the worse your mileage is going to get, because air is denser the colder it gets, so the vehicle needs more fuel to keep the mixture proper. You could pull the spark plugs out and look for white powder deposits on one or more of the plugs, that would indicate burning coolant. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kneedeep Posted March 10, 2009 Share Posted March 10, 2009 I feel your pain brother!!! I am in Edmonton (aka siberia) also. My pathy basically plays the role of the winter beast, and It gets terrible fuel economy when it is this cold + major exhaust. I wouldn't worry to much about the smoke from the exhaust as I am sure it is just the norm when the temp drops. With the temps this low i get 275-350 kms/tank, this is with warm up idling and 4x4 about 20-50% of the time. In nicer weather and no need for 4x4 the truck gets around 450 at best if I am driving nice, more realistically 425/tank. For reference my wd21 is a 95 v6, auto, 4x4, 215k, 235/75/15 nokian Vativa a/t's Check your fluids, if it looks like they are still there and are not mysteriously disappearing then all is fine. Also I have had the wd21 for a little while and used to have an r50, on super cold mornings with a small-medium commute I found the truck stayed a touch cooler (according to the gauge and heat from vents) than it would get on a more mild day. If you have "mayo" (white scrap) under your oil fill cap it is an indicator of water in your oil, and oil in coolant is easy to notice if you look around. A nice touch for winter would be placing a sheet of cardboard in between the AC condenser and the radiator, this will act as a poor mans winter front and aid in the engine warming and keeping warm while driving, works for me. good luck with your pathy. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Precise1 Posted March 10, 2009 Share Posted March 10, 2009 With the poor mileage and gas smell in the exhaust, you might want to check the MAF and O2 sensors one of those could be faulty causing you to run rich. Yup. You should the ECU for fault codes also. B Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nicholas Posted March 11, 2009 Author Share Posted March 11, 2009 Thank you all for your help. Kneedeep, nice to know there are other suffering edmontonians here. The fuel economy info was helpful, I was a little worried. A couple of weeks ago I took it to my friends step-dad whose supposed to be a mechanic, but he was checking fluids and with a cavalier attitude he dumped a huge amount of oil in her. Checked the level and it's still overfull, I think this is probably the main culprit for the excess exhaust. It's white and a little blue, so yeah it's oil. Coolant not dropping, so I guess all is good. Oh yeah didn't know that about the cold affecting gas consumption, interesting. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Precise1 Posted March 11, 2009 Share Posted March 11, 2009 It's white and a little blue White is water/antifreeze, blue is oil, black is gas rich. Get the oil down to a correct level and see what it does... B Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
morpheus Posted March 11, 2009 Share Posted March 11, 2009 White is water/antifreeze, blue is oil, black is gas rich. Get the oil down to a correct level and see what it does... B And do it quickly. Driving around with too much oil in the motor can cause damage. It will also make your gas mileage suck, as the crankshaft has to work that much harder to spin in a huge vat of oil. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nicholas Posted March 12, 2009 Author Share Posted March 12, 2009 Took 'bout a litre of oil outta it last night, and with the warmer weather it's running a little more the way I would expect. Gonna check the ECU for codes and I'll clean up the MFA and in no time she'll be running like a butte. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ramon Posted March 12, 2009 Share Posted March 12, 2009 my pathy do exactly same and I realize the manifold gaskets where broken and let pass smoke to the passenger area so I changed them (is a kind of PITA to do it ) and problem solved for the smell but still doing the same in the white smoke on the mornings and cold days and something else happened when is cold the RPM gauge goes to 1200 and remain there about a minute or two and then it get down under 1000 and stay there until I turn in off. I already clean the MAF sensor do you know how to check the C2 sensor? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nicholas Posted March 14, 2009 Author Share Posted March 14, 2009 I checked the ECU for codes and it came up with 11 (crank angle sensor!) and 33 (heated oxygen sensor). In my haynes it says to unplug the harnesses and see how it affects it. Unplugging the Crank angle sensor killed the engine, and unplugging the o2 sensor caused the revs to drop down lower than normal. However, the truck had been idling kinda high, round 1500, and unplugging the o2 dropped the idle down to 1000, but it sounded real rough and shook. All in all I was wondering what to do about these codes. Do I really have to replace the Crank angle sensor? and does that mean changing out the entire distrubutor (haynes says so)? Note: now that its above freezing here the white exhaust isn't billowing so much but exhaust is spewing a lot of condensation. Any help welcome. Thanks! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Create an account or sign in to comment
You need to be a member in order to leave a comment
Create an account
Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!
Register a new accountSign in
Already have an account? Sign in here.
Sign In Now