mcintosh1

Today after driving home on the freeway i have a 45 mile commute my add oil light came on followed by a huge plume of gray white smoke twice the size of the car checked oil it was a quart low now the engine pings and continues to smoke also severe loss of power lots of hesatation the car has 180,000 miles antifreeze is normal never overheated any ideas whats wrong??

natman

The sudden large plume of gray smoke sounds like a blown head gasket that's allowing water into the engine.

Wish I had better news.

gsean400

I got better news, theres a 20% chance its not your headgasket. U never really hear of a headgasket going bad on our motors. If your not overheating maybe u have a bad cat and your car got thrown into limp?

Nelexus88

I would expect the CEL light to be on and some codes stored. They will point you in the direction of the problem.

Category5

highly doubt its his cats man.... did you pull your dip stick? whats up is the oil milk? you open your radiator? there anything left in it?

If so! run the car with the cap off for a bit and describe what you see, if theres no milk in the oil pan, id still do a compression test but when you say loss of power, how much? limp mode loss? or does the car move? best bet it to record this and post it on youtube and paste the link for us

VIP161

iTrader: (3)

The last time my add oil light turned on, my car lost all power on the highway. Took the oil cap off only to see steamy vapors coming out. Turned out to be a spun bearing which had gotten so hot it had cracked the block.

rlr001

I overheated my gs430 2001 engine, and car came to a smoking halt. took it into my Lexus mechanic, had to replace a coil, radiator, thermostat (culprit!), vvt sensor, engine was leaking antifreeze from engine block and had to be resealed (not headers), and its like new. Mechanic said Lexus 430's are hard to break! don't assume its dead, have it looked at by someone who is an expert at these engines, my mechanic said they are hardy engines and can take a lot of abuse.