# White smoke from exhaust



## pablohdez3 (May 29, 2013)

Hi guys,

My GF has a 2000 Sentra with about +60k miles. She took the car for service because the car was shaking on idle and felt like it was lacking power, I checked the spark plugs and noticed that two cables were damage, she didn't let me replace them and she took the car to the shop, regular service; oil change, air filter, fuel filter, new spark plug cables and the camshaft cover gasket was dripping a little bit of oil.

She picked the car from the shop and everything was fine; 2 days after we noticed a lot of smoke coming from the exhaust, white smoke. I drove the car and it seems to smoke at high RPM in 3rd and 4th gear, also when I accelerate from low RPM in 5th (from 50mph trying to get to 70mph) the when I cruise around 65-70mph the smoke disappears. But when I lower the speed to 15-20mph and I accelerate again (2nd or 3rd gear); like when your are going over a speed bump, the car leaves a huge plume of white smoke. Also when the car is parked if I rev the engine over 2500rpm I get some smoke, not a lot but some starts to come out from the exhaust

I took the car to shop and the guy said that the catalytic converter is damaged and that's the reason why the car is smoking. I'm not really convinced about that, so if somebody has any ideas about this issue please let me know.

Thanks


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## smj999smj (Jan 1, 2006)

White smoke is steam. If you have a 1.8L, you likely have a bad head gasket, something that is fairly common for this engine. The catalytic converter may also be bad due to contamination from the coolant entering the exhaust, but the converter alone would not cause steam, or "white smoke." You can confirm a bad head gasket by performing a cylinder leakdown test. You can also check for a bad converter by performing an exhaust backpressure test.


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## pablohdez3 (May 29, 2013)

smj999smj said:


> White smoke is steam. If you have a 1.8L, you likely have a bad head gasket, something that is fairly common for this engine. The catalytic converter may also be bad due to contamination from the coolant entering the exhaust, but the converter alone would not cause steam, or "white smoke." You can confirm a bad head gasket by performing a cylinder leakdown test. You can also check for a bad converter by performing an exhaust backpressure test.


Thanks, I going to check the head gasket.


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## snOwbLind (Jun 1, 2013)

you might want to check the rocker gasket.


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