Status Update: Car trouble and DIY

Recap: In an earlier post, I detailed DH’s car issues. The main problem we’re addressing currently is diagnosing the black smoke that billows out of the tailpipe and hood occasionally. It primarily smokes upon start-up from the tailpipe, and more rarely for the first few seconds after startup from the hood. The car is a 1993 Lexus ES300 that’s been with DH’s family since it was brand new.

Research:

• The Auto Mechanic: We paid an auto place $120 to look at the vehicle and check the computer code for why the “check engine” light is on. The light was on due to a loose hose. The mechanic originally thought the smoke was due to the oil change people spilling a little oil on the engine block, and that it would go away after running the engine long enough to burn off the extra oil. We paid the mechanic an additional $120 to fix the loose hose, and for his advice on the smoking problem. After running the engine for 20 minutes, the smoking problem did not go away in the shop, and the mechanic became convinced that the rings on the piston heads have been corroded and worn enough to allow oil to leak through into the combustion chamber. His advice? Replace the engine. He was skeptical that removing and re-machining the piston heads would be better than replacing the engine – while the engine is more expensive to replace, removing and re-machining the piston heads is much more labor intensive and would cost more to have done. Either way, we’d probably be better off selling the car for a small amount and purchasing a used car in better condition – the amount we’d end up paying that way would probably be less than the amount we’d pay to repair the car professionally.

• My Dad: My Dad knows everything. (I imagine everyone thinks this of their Dad, but in my case, it’s true!) Well, at least he spent the early years of Mom and Dad’s marriage pulling the engine out of one of their cars and working on it on a sheet spread out in the living room of their trailer house. On a side note, my parents are two of the coolest people I know, but that’s enough material for a whole other post. Maybe in honor of my Mom’s birthday coming up I’ll write about why they are so cool. Anyway, I call Dad and ask him what he thinks of the problem. After listening to the symptoms, he says we can trace the smoke to one of two sources: transmission fluid or oil. A leak in the vacuum cinder (sender? Sometimes when Dad says stuff I have trouble spelling it later) would mean burning transmission fluid and an easy fix. Burning oil would spell bigger troubles, either what the mechanic said about piston rings or leaky valve seats. Dad’s always been a little skeptical about my abilities to fix my own cars, for good reason. I never have a ton of time, and never have a ton of space to work. He said fixing the piston rings or valve seats would be one thing if we had nights and weekends completely free and a large garage we could keep clean and dry, and another thing entirely if we only have a few hours a week to dedicate to the project and only an apartment carport with cars sandwiched in like sardines on either side. Anyway, I checked the oil and transmission fluid levels after running the engine for a little bit, and sure enough, its burning oil. We’d be crazy to try to fix it ourselves, but well, they called Mom and Dad crazy once when they were young.

• The Auto Zone Clerk: The clerk was like, “wow, that’s a great car, you should put in a new engine and you can probably get another 100,000 to 200,000 miles out of it!” Yeah, I would also think that if you put a new engine in any car you can probably get a lot more miles out of it; doesn’t that almost make it a new car? We picked up a copy of the Haynes repair manual for the 1997-2001 Lexus ES300. There were a lot of changes to the Lexus engineering between 1993 and 1997, but we’ll also go for a 1993 Toyota Camry repair manual when we can find one. Unfortunately, Haynes does not have a repair manual that lists the 1993 Lexus ES300 as one of the models it addresses. We will have a steep learning curve whether we have a repair manual or not, so against the clerk’s advice, we got the manual. DH also got some higher density oil (HD30) and a “StopLeak” formula, on the clerk’s advice. These are supposed to add enough viscosity to the oil that it’s less likely to seep through small leaks. I think his plan is to try out the oil formulas and see if he can get a few more smoke-free miles on it as a stop-gap measure between now and attempting repairs.

• Continuing Research: Please, please, if this sounds like a familiar problem to you, post a comment for us. We’re such newbies at this kind of thing, and can use all the help and support we can get!