95 3.0 blowing major smoke - Toyota Nation Forum : Toyota Car and Truck Forums

PB65stang · 04-08-2007, 12:02 PM

My 1995 Avalon might have just hit the crapper. Went out to take it to church today, and it didn't want to start. It will crank, and sputter, and finally start. Didn't trust it, so we took the truck. Came home, tried to start, same thing happpened. When it DOES start, it blows HUGE amounts of oil out the tailpipe. This is a car that has never blown any oil before. I'm a little worried something has happened with the valvetrain, and if that's so, adios Avalon...hello Tacoma or 4Runner. Any ideas on what it could be?

***toyomoho*** · 04-09-2007, 12:32 PM

Is this oil or gas smoke? Suggest if possible doing a compression or leak down test. Or at least look at the spark plugs for oil or gas fueling. As the rear plugs can be hard to remove, there was a post on the Camry forum about being able to pull/replace the plugs in 1 hr.

PB65stang · 04-09-2007, 01:00 PM

It's oil. It's getting a compression and plug test as we speak, guess we will wait and see. It did nothing this morning...drove like normal. I still don't trust it though...

avalontom · 04-09-2007, 04:00 PM

If the smoke is black, its a fuel problem - maybe a bad coolant temperature sensor is telling the computer that it's very cold outside and needs to dump lots of fuel in the engine.

aigochamaloh · 04-09-2007, 05:05 PM

does the idle or anything seem different? does the motor sound different at all?

maybe your rings are shot, hence oil is burning, and also the hard to start from low compression.

PB65stang · 04-09-2007, 06:04 PM

Got the car back today...good news. Techs at Toyota couldn't find anything wrong, so the most likely culprit seems to be bad gas, possibly with an octane that was too low, hence the white smoke (oil). Guess I know where to NOT go for gas anymore...I'm just glad it was nothing more serious. Said the engine was the cleanest inside they have seen for one with that many miles on it

so maybe there are a few thousand miles left in it after all! Thanks for all the suggestions!

sickwilly · 04-10-2007, 11:21 AM

bummer, you seemed to really be excited about a new Taco or 4Runner. Glad to hear of another old Avalon vitory, though.

PB65stang · 04-11-2007, 11:45 AM

Haha, in a way I was! I'm glad the car is OK though, I don't really have the money to be dumping into a new car. The Avalon has to last me a couple more years, then I can have fun. Another Avalon stays on the road!