If you think about it, you’ve probably never actually seen your automobile’s exhaust. Even diesel engines these days do not blow a ton of black exhaust into the environment. Crossroads Automotive advises that you shouldn’t see your exhaust. Rather, you should see nothing unless it’s cold outside and the exhaust looks like steam. You shouldn’t smell your exhaust, either. If you do, it’s important to pull your vehicle over right away and call for a tow truck to avoid the dangerous possibility of carbon monoxide poisoning. Vehicle exhaust says a lot about your vehicle’s health. Let’s talk about this further.
Burning Fuel Creates Black Exhaust
We don’t mean to frighten you, but if you see black exhaust smoke pouring out of your tailpipe, there’s a possibility that you have a small fuel fire somewhere in your engine. When your engine burns too much fuel, it can produce black tailpipe exhaust. In rare cases, the burning fuel may be so intense that you might also see sparks or flames in the exhaust. As you can imagine, this can make driving your car dangerous, so it’s important to have it towed to our shop right away. You may have a fuel leak somewhere in the engine, or the fuel injectors are cracked and leaking fuel.
Burning Oil Creates Blue Exhaust
The most common reason why an engine will create blue exhaust is that it is burning oil. Usually, the oil is dripping into the cylinders because the valves seals have failed. These seals prevent oil from making its way from the oil pan into the combustion chamber. Generally, this is an extensive repair and because your oil levels are immediately low due to the oil leaking out of the pan, you can consequently cause additional engine damage if you keep driving your car. Blue exhaust, just like black exhaust, should signal you to pull over and call for a tow truck.
Burning Coolant Creates White Exhaust
Finally, if you see a ton of white exhaust behind you, it could be that you’ve blown head gasket and motor oil is mixing with your engine coolant. This can make the engine coolant milky in its appearance and, naturally, causes a coolant leak, an overheating engine, and severe engine damage because both the coolant and the oil have been contaminated. If your car gets hot enough, which it should very quickly, you’ll also end up with white smoke coming out from underneath your hood. Don’t take chances with this problem, either. Call for a tow.
Crossroads Automotive believes in being the best auto service shop in Topeka, KS. Let us inspect your car, truck, or utility vehicle so we can find out why your automobile is hemorrhaging exhaust and fix it.