The strangest thing happened today. I tried to start my car tonight but instead of the usual start within 2-3 turns the car just turned over and over. Then the lights dimmed, and after trying to start the car I just kept hearing a bunch of clicks coming from the passenger floor area (guessing the ECU).

Well, I got a jump and the car started just fine, but now it has a CEL (check engine light). It was in limp mode so I babied her home and checked the usual stuff. I found that I had burned off 3 quards of engine oil!!! 9000 miles ago I switched to Mobil 1.. and noticed that some oil was being burned off.. a little more than usual but thought nothing of it. Now all of a sudden 3 quarts are gone within 2000 miles from the last change?!

After I filled her back up with oil, it was a little overfilled but should be ok. I unhooked the battery to try and reset the CEL and it went away. I drove the car for 20 mins and the CEL never came back but alot of white smoke is coming out the exhaust... Does oil burn black or white? or was that coolant that burned white?

The car seems to run fine but is rougher than I remember, and aside from the white smoke from the tail pipe during partial or WOT it seems fine. I dont know what to do at this point.. suggestions?

Btw: car is a 2001 Honda Accord EX 4 cylinder 2.3 5 speed.

 

thats oil, it will have a blue'ish tint but it will be mainly white, most cars with vtec will burn oil but 3 quarts in 2000 miles, thats pretty excisive

 

your CEL was probably a low oil pressure. did your oil light come on?

and black smoke is burning oil (i ride in VTEC a lot) if i'm not mistaken.

and the clicks you heard was your battery taking a dump. may want to look into a new one, or get yours checked. winter weather is hard on batteries too.

 

Oil is usually white when you are burning a little but becomes more of a blueish color when a lot is being burned at a time.

Maybe you should try a compression test to see whats going on.

 

White smoke=coolant/water. Can be emitted normally after a cold start when moisture has collected in the exhaust. Often, people don't notice this until they are troubleshooting and get worried. If the car is warmed up, and increasing throttle increases the amount of white smoke, 9 out of 10 times you have a blown HG.

Blue smoke=oil. If only at start up, it may not be that serious and just a slight problem with your rings, if continuous, you are in for a rebuild soon as your engine is no longer sealed well and will probably get worse, especially under harder driving. In a turbo car, blue smoke under WOT indicates a blown turbo seal.

Black smoke can also be emitted from HEAVY carbon deposits but is rare, usually it's blue or white and people can't tell very well, it is difficult sometimes.

It's difficult to tell from your post, but you may want to check for physical oil leaks. Also, buy a screw-in type compression tester from autozone or something and do a compression test, it's very easy. Search for details on it but that'll indicate if it's an internal problem causing the heavy oil losses. It is possible the synthetic oil made your engine problems more apparent, but was probably not the actualy cause. Best of luck.

 

Thanks for the replies folks, I think it is a blown head gasket since the smoke is continously bright white even after the engine has warmed up and not black or blue. I think it is time to buy another F23A4 engine... I was planning on doing a turbo buildup anyway.. guess here is my chance

 

well maybe bad news for u buddy...whiye smoke coming out of ur exhaust...chances are....u have a head gasket leak....are u loosing coolant...check that ..if u are chances are ur coolant is mixing with ur motor oil and runing down into ur piston burnin it out of ur exhaust causing white smoke...if ur not loosing coolant...maybe ur valve seals could be leaking...but that would not be white smoke...that would be black and it will only show at idle or giving ur car gas...piston rings will do the same as valve seals...but check ur coolant...