2000 camry blowing oil - Toyota Nation Forum : Toyota Car and Truck Forums

franco2000 · 07-01-2009, 11:12 AM

Hello, and thanks for reading my post. I have a 2000 camry with a v6 engine. The car has 70,000 miles on it. When I take off from a stop light, a puff of smoke comes out of the tailpipe. What might this be? A mechanic thinks valve guides (he says that this car has a problem with them and if you replace valve stem seals, you would have to go back and replace the guides anyway) but I'm not sure. The mileage seems low to have valve guide problems. Any ideas?
Thanks, Frank

***ASG14*** · 07-01-2009, 07:38 PM

If those are worn at this mileage (which the blue smoke would indicate), I think you may have more serious issues. How regularly do you change oil? These engines if massively uncared for by not doing oil changes sludges up the motor.

franco2000 · 07-02-2009, 09:14 AM

How do I tell if this buildup has happened? If sludge build up has occurred, where does this build up happen? Is it on the heads? If I have the guides and valve stem seals replaced, will that solve the problem? Thanks for the help. Frank

islandboy57 · 07-02-2009, 06:06 PM

You can try switching to a heavier oil as a band-aid solution. I switched to 10W-40 on the gen 3.5 - on thinner oil, there's some smoke like you describe. Now it's just there for 1-2 seconds at start up and that's it.

The 1MZ-FE (the motor in your V6 Camry) is prone to sludging if you don't change the oil at least every 3-5 months or 3-5K miles. Have you kept up with that?

Has your mechanic talked to you about the price for replacing the valve guide and stem seals? My cousin looked it up on some website that lists "book" labor rates (I forget which one), and replacing those on the 1MZ was listed as something like 15 hours because you have to basically rebuild the engine. Other people have said that before on TN and most end up not replacing them because it's cost prohibitive. I just keep an eye on the oil level and to see if the smoke is getting worse.

My mom drives the gen 3.5 and I'm not going to fix it. The car is 14 years old and the problem is minor now so I figure by the time it gets really bad, it'll be time to replace the car anyway.

franco2000 · 07-05-2009, 09:43 PM

Hey, thanks island for answering my questions. I'm trying to decide my plan of action. I appreciate the input. Thanks, Frank