Questions and Answers

Pontiac Parisienne Blows White Smoke Q. First of all thank you for your answers concerning my last email about the Chevy Celebrity; your answers were very helpful. I own a second car. A: 1984 Pontiac Parisienne 5.0 liter V-8 Automatic transmission 85,312 miles

Here is the problem; when I bought this used vehicle it had just below a half a tank of gas. Well I topped it off and the gas gauge went up to just over a half a tank.

After that I noticed severe fluctuation up and down on the gas gauge and thick white smoke coming from the exhaust system. I had the exhaust system checked and it passed fine. The spark plugs and wires were replaced and yet thick white smoke keeps coming from the exhaust and also I will drive less than 5 miles total to work and back and a half a tank of gas is gone that fast in two days time.

The exhaust fumes are very thick meaning you can pretty much smell them when you're sitting in the car with the window rolled down. Fumes smell kind of like gasoline and like something else I can't describe. Can't seem to find any gas leeks. What could cause the white smoke and abnormal gas loss?

A. White smoke usually means you have a coolant leak into the combustion chamber. This may be a blown head gasket. If it were running very rich it would run real bad, chugging and you would see black smoke. There are some things that would make it burn a lot of fuel like a bad carburetor or a ruptured diaphragm in the canister purge valve. But this would make it run really bad as well.

Diagnose and fix the white smoke first. You may be getting rid of this sooner than you think! Coolant burning and coming out the tailpipe can give you a sweet odor.