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[celicaboston1983]

When I start my car a puff of smoke comes out. AFter that the car is normal no smoke what so ever. I asked around and some people say is bad valve stem seals? can any one confirm that or know of any other problem it could be. And also if it is the seals how much would I expect to pay for a shop to fix it for me. thanks


-Tony

[presure2]

yup, its valve seals, pretty common on our cars, not somthing to be overly concerned about, just keep an eye on your oil level..i think toyota gets somthin like 800 or so to do them..

[celicaboston1983]

get the f*** out of here 800 buck!!!! I hope you meant 80 dollars

[Manta5x]

how many miles do you have on her?
I have the same problem but I ignored it and my car still runs ,I have 213,000 miles on her now

[celicaboston1983]

160000 on the body buy previous owner said he put in a 80k engine in it.

[Digndoug]

first off, do you have a tidket for the new engine?.. I knew someone who bought an engine that they said there was a new engine in it, and threy were full of ****.. he sewed him. But yeah my car odes it too. Iv noticed the more often i changed my oil, for what ever reason, it dosnt burn or do it really at all. you can also try some risoline its like 2-3 bucks.. that helps out every oil change.

[celicaboston1983]

i think im due to change my oil. And is it really 800 bucks to fix

[Manta5x]

tell the deal about it , maybe get the dealer to flush the engine then of course change the oil

[spunky393]

try a penzoil product next. The oil has a wax type deal in it that seals all that stuff up, but you have to use penzoil for the rest of the life of your car if you use it once. If that doesn't work, then, i don't know what to tell you. Try using that stp stuff next time, just dump it in with your oil and it kinda changes the formula of it. And another thing to try is synthetic if you arn't using that already.

[presure2]

yes, i did mean 800, not 80...thats toyota repairs..

[celicaboston1983]

damn that means if i go to a regular shop it still gonna cost me 500-600 why does it cost so much to fix btw.

[presure2]

hehe i dont know, im not a mechanic by ANY means...lol

[turboinduction]

[celicaboston1983]

f that i think im just gonna sell my car. **** is starting to piss me off. was thinking of keeping it until this happened.

[CoolDoctorJ]

I'm having the same problem, so I'm going to have a Toyota dealership look at it and tell me what they think the problem is. I'll report here if they can fix the problem and how much it costs.

[celicaboston1983]

cool tahnks doctor

[CoolDoctorJ]

Ok, so I just got back from the dealer, and they basically confirmed what everyone here says: It's the valve seals. Don't worry about it, it's a common quirk and you probably aren't burning a lot of oil. It turns out that even a tiny drop of oil that may have leaked in to a cylinder before startup can make a pretty big cloud of smoke, so we're probably not burning a noticeable amount between oil changes.

The maintenance guy I talked to knew what I was talking about right away, and was very familiar with the problem. He said that if he went out and started one of the used Camrys on the lot they would usually do the same thing. He also said he used to have an older Celica... '86 I think he said... that did the same thing and aside from the superficial puff of smoke it didn't give him any trouble.

Their advice to me: Keep an eye on it, but don't worry about it. It would be an outrageous amount of labor to have the valve seals replaced. It happens to almost everyone with a 5s-fe engine, it doesn't burn enough oil to worry about, and it doesn't affect how the car runs.

Hope that helped.

[celicaboston1983]

thanks for the info, btw I went started my car today and no smoke came out today.

[Jeremy1210]

I have the same problem. I bought some STP stop leak and used it wiht my last oil change. You have to put it in before the oil then let the car run for 15 mins after the change. So far I haven't had any smoke. that was 1K ago

[celicaboston1983]

do u poor the whole bottle in? and what many bottles of oil do u put in with it ?

[CoolDoctorJ]

celicaboston1983 - I didn't get any smoke this morning either. Seeing as how we're (theoretically) in the same part of the state I almost want to think that the weather or the atmosphere has some sort of effect on it. Weird...

I'll have to look into that stop leak stuff.

[celicaboston1983]

o **** i didnt even know you was from ma too im gonna try some of that stp stuff

[celicaboston1983]

i cahnged my oil and put in stp stop leak stuff during the weekend and havent been smoking when i start up in two days : )

[bufferdan]

Very Very common with these cars. Even my g/f's celica with 70k on it does it. Try some of that stopleak or some additive and see what happens. Its not a big deal anyways. Probably just a drop of oil every now and then.

[neoklis]

Yeah the STP product is excellent although its old tech (but then so is the Celi) I use such products all the time for preventive purposes. I would love to see if this is an actual treatment though. So everybody with this problem just get this STP product and report back to get a success ratio.

[celicaboston1983]

its been two days with out smoking since i put it in

[Snarfer]

I just took a 5s head apart with a little under 60k and the valve seals were cracked and falling apart. Although it was a 96. I guess its just a pretty normal problem with these engines.

[audiophile24]

well she is smokin time for a 3sgte swap my freind and sell the 5sfe to a freind who has a tercel he wants to put the 5sfe in...

This post has been edited by audiophile24: Jul 27, 2004 - 11:32 PM

[celicaboston1983]

after two days of being smoke-free i got smoke today

[CoolDoctorJ]

Yep. I didn't use STP, but I found a different oil treatment with Stop Leak. Sure enough, it worked for about 2 days and then the smoke was back. Sigh.

[celicaboston1983]

weird **** it smoked yesterday and it didnt smoke today wahts going on

[CoolDoctorJ]

I still think it's the weather somehow. Atmospheric pressure, humidity, temperature, moon phases, something...