maxchef

I did a search and found very little info on this. I have an 05 SE with 17000 miles on it. When ever i stomp on it i get a puff of smoke out of the tail end. It smells like rotten eggs and its almost like a smoke screen. I know there was recently a thread on the rotten egg smell and i understand that part but i dont understand the smoke. It did it before i put my CAI on so i know its not the problem. The Dealership says its normal and it should go away....WELL WHEN????????? I know its a dark smoke not white, not sure how dark though because my windows are tinted. Can anyone shed some light on this PLEASE!!??.Sorry for the REPOST!!

Thanks Everyone!!
Chef

SREAVIS007

Ive always heard just to be concerned with white smoke. Still a new car should not be doing this stuff!!!

MIKEDINERO2000

I don't have no smoke coming out when I hit mines.

KUBLKMAX

iTrader: (3)

Hey Chef if it is dark smoke then usally that means you are burning oil, which in turn means a leak somewhere. My max is the same year w/22k and I have never had smoke of any kind or funny smells either.

RHMax

That is typical of our stock ECU mapping, as in typical new cars w/ high output engines to give better MPG. The white smoke, not blue or black, is from the moisture in the gasoline you buy, try switching brand/octane.

chernmax

iTrader: (15)

I have installed lot's of mods but never any smoke as a result...

dla

I'll save the "beating a dead horse", and from a donating member

Here is the smell thread and read the first post.

http://forums.maxima.org/showthread.php?t=406568

Another source of the smell is sulfur in the gas and it happens under heavy acceleration or hard loads and is normal. What the dealer means by "the smell will go away" is only true if you lay off the heavy accelerations.

MAXSE-RIOUS

Good question!!... I've always had the smoke since day 1 when I punch it, and I'm now @ 30K miles!!

Mike_TX

As someone else stated, it's not really "smoke", but rather a vapor of water and partially unburned gas, along with miscellaneous crud in your exhaust pipes and catalytic converter getting blown out.

What happens is that you're overloading the system when you stomp it, and it can't keep up with the flow of gasoline and exhaust being dumped into it. And in the process, it blows out some particulate matter that's sitting in the converters, mufflers and exhaust pipes.

If you're not burning any oil, don't worry about it.

SilverMax_04

Close, but not quite correct. The "steam" that comes out of the exhaust is normal and a product of combustion. It is not "from the moisture in the gasoline." So switching brands or octane will not eliminate this situation.

Basic physics says that burning a gallon of any grade of gasoline will produce almost a gallon of water in the combustion process. This fact of physics must be accommodated by the exhaust system. This water when combined with the sulfur in gasoline is the reason for mufflers and other exhaust parts to corrode -- particularly fast on cars that never properly warm up. Go to the Fluids and Lubes section and see my thread on Ultra Low Sulfur Gasoline mandated by the government starting March 1.

If the cat converter is operating properly, there will be no unburned gasoline in this vapor. Mike is correct to a point. If you are not burning oil (or losing coolant into the engine) there is nothing to worry about.

MAX2DAMAX

iTrader: (5)

Dude we are not driving hydrogen cars, como on..... one gallons of gas will give you one gallon water, CO2 would be your highest residue from combustion. (except whe you have pure hydrogen and pure oxygen, this will give you pure H2O, "water") so try again....

ShadowMaxx

"Black" smoke is usually fuel and often associated with a rich condition, which makes sense since you only seem to see it when you "stomp on it" and the engine is wide open throttle and the injectors are sending a rush of fuel to the engine. A bluish-tint smoke is usually an indicator of oil burning which could indicate possible blow-by.

3.5 Lover

I had a Sentra SE and my wife a regular Sentra. Both cars had the "burning egg" smell and dark colored smoke coming from the exhaust when we stomped on the gas. Nissan dealerships couldn't explain exactly why we had this problem. It was embarrasing when people got out of the car and it seemed as though someone had passed gas, it wasn't me but the car. They (dealership) kept saying it was the cat converter and also said it was normal. I didn't buy it and sold both. That was five years ago and since I have had 6 Nissan's and none have had that smell.

MAXSE-RIOUS

Thanks Mike, pretty much what I figured, but still somewhat surprising to see it when it happens.

maxchef

Thanks Guys for all the input. I did read all the posts on the "rotten egg" smell as stated in the intial part of my post, but thanks for the link. Everything that has been stated makes perfect sense, i will read the lube section and i plan on switching brands of gas just to rule it out. You guys are the bomb!

Many Thanks,
Chef

SilverMax_04

It is unusual how many "experts" there are on this site. But this just shows how poorly most schools are doing teaching basic science. Time for a little science lesson for those who did not learn it in school. (So, I will try again.)

As most chemical engineers know, gasoline is composed of many different chemical blends, so the exact chemical definition of gasoline varies somewhat with each individual batch each refinery blends. The web site I consulted to confirm my statement that burning a gallon of gasoline would produce slightly less than a gallon of water (when it was condensed) acknowledged that gasoline was "a mixture of many hydrocarbons." But for simplicity, they did a combustion calculation assuming that gasoline was composed of 100% iso-octane. This is a simplifying assumption that, from the standpoint of water produced, does not introduce very much error in the calculation. So, if you don't believe me (DAM does not believe me), check out the chemical calculation for buring gasoline at this thread on this site:

http://www.newton.dep.anl.gov/askasc.../chem99583.htm

This is answered by a Ph.D. reasearch chemist, which I am not. He says that each molecule of Iso-octane that is burned completely produces 8 molecules of CO2 and 9 molecules of H20 (that is water). He goes on to say this another way: completely burning 0.165 liters of gasoline (assumed to be all iso-octane) produces 0.160 liters of condensed liquid water and 180 liters of CO2 in vapor form.

Using this ratio (.160/.165), burning a gallon of gasoline would produce almost 0.97 gallons of condensed water. My memory from school was that this was closer to .95 gallons, but I won't quibble with this calculation because it proves my point.

Well, most of this water comes out of the exhaust as water vapor and not in condensed form. So people who don't think about this just assume that most of the exhaust is CO2, and don't even think about the water that also comes out of the tail pipe.

Oh, chef, swithcing gasoline brands may give you a different result as far as knocking (or not knocking) and WOT performance. I don't see how it could affect what you see coming out of your tail pipe.

RVC

iTrader: (1)

I couldn't have put it better myself Mike. Mine blows out crap all the time when I downshift and hammer on the gas. I'm not worried about it because it's not a problem. I also believe it is the sotck setting of the ECU which also has a part in it. I'll bet most of us do have the same thing going on but they just can't see it. My friend was behind me and I downshifted a few gears and he sait it blew out a nice puff of "smoke". Smoke that is caused by burning oil has a bluish tinge to it, white is normally moisture/water, dark black is a rich running engine. I wouldn't sweat it!

mwh

My '02 SE Altima did the white smoke clouds, minus the egg smell, and I thought it was odd because I never had a car that did that before, especially if it was running clean. I got my new Max and stepped on it at 1k miles and got the cloud, plus the egg smell, thinking maybe it was just because it was new and would clear up. Now it had 3700 miles and I stepped on it the other day and got the white cloud and egg smell. It must be a Nissan thing.

maxchef

Thanks SilverMax.....although i feel like i am back in the lab in Chem class(LOL) it did bring alot of knowledgeable information that i think that we ALL could use. I have no other indications that anything is wrong so i dont plan to pursue the matter any further. I will continue to drive my car as it was designed.....both feet in it..LOL! Get ya some!

Many Thanks....
Chef

RHMax

Not a Nissan thing, check other forums.

mwh

I really don't have time to go checking other forums and just sharing my owner experience.

I had carbon buildup (black smoke) in previous cars but never a white cloud until my '02 SE 3.5 Altima, and the Max is the same but it also smells like rotten eggs. I use 93 octane and have used Sunoco for years and no other engine did this.

RHMax

You made a claim that it's a Nissan thing, and I say it isn't. It seems to be common on newer engines w/ fluctuating AFR and high voltage ignition. You won't have much carbon buildup w/ these engines.

Dutchboy

mine smokes also, maybe just cleaning out

!PrjctMax!

iTrader: (38)

Thanks For The Great Info Guys!!!!!!!! You Just Saved Me A Trip To The Dealership!!!!!!!!

tubells

a search u missed ... avatar belongs to someone else....chern??

Hughey79

I just made an appointment for my car to see the doctors at the dealer as well. I got on my car Saturday and never before had a problem. But that day I looked back and had friends behind me and a lot of white smoke came out of the exhaust.
Ran fine, checked the oil and it is okay. I have kept on it for the last coupld of days and it has gotten lighter but is still there. I am using the same fuel (Amoco/BP 92 octane) and never seen issues before.
So it seems that this is either a computer problem or normal? It is embarrising though to have this.
I have 7000 miles on the clock. I hope this doesnt continue for the entire life.
Thanks everyone.

!PrjctMax!

iTrader: (38)

For me it stops after about 30 minutes of driving...........even when my engine is warm and i get on it, it still pisses out a cloud of smoke, but after like 30 minutes of run time it stops.

SilverMax_04

There is a lot of obsessing in this thread -- without much information provided about exactly what is coming out of the tail pipe -- other than "smoke." There is also no information provided by the obsessors about what is happeing with their VQ engines. Is it burning motor oil? This would normally produce bluish "smoke." Is the level of antifreeze going down? Depending on the antifreeze leak rate into the engine, this could produce copious amounts of steam and probably also show water (antifreeze) in the oil pan.

Is the "smoke" dark grey or blackish in color? This would propably mean that the engine is cleaning out accumulated carbon deposits. Getting on the engine by running high RPMs will normally clean out some of those deposits. I like to run up the RPMs on my VQ at least once a week to "blow out" the engine of these deposits.

I suspect that most of you are simply seeing the normal water vapor that comes from burning gasoline. See posts #10 and #16 in this thread for my discussion of this fact of physics. When the engine is cold, this water vapor is more visable in the exhaust.

Check out the details of your "smoke" and do better reporting of what you are seeing. Otherwise we can not give you a reasonably accurate assessment of what you are experiencing.

mwh

As many of the "obsessors" have reported it is white smoke. As I had reported it is not the black smoke we all know is carbon build up.

My Altima 3.5 never burned any oil and the radiator level was always up but it spewed out the white smoke too. My Max is too new to tell if it is burning any oil and the radiator level is good.

In the case of my Altima 3.5 (first one to do this -for me anyway) I thought it may be related to the AF mixture unique to my engine, but since my Max and apparently many others report the same white smoke then it is probably condensation building up in the cat as mentioned by someone else here.

observer

Hughey79

I have checked my oil. it is fine.
anti-freeze is good to go... it is just a light white colored smoke that appears when we accelerate hard. Mine does it both when the car is cold and warm... it just started this too. Havent changed anything to make this happen. Engine idles and runs normal otherwise.

SilverMax_04

Hughey and mwh, I would not worry. Sounds like moisture from combustion in the form of a steam-like water vapor in the exhaust.

The computer controlled combustion in your VQ should keep the air/fuel ratio in the proper range. But should this control fail, it could result in the system "dumping" too much gasoline into the engine. If you are seeing this "steam" in the exhaust after the engine has warmed up (about an hour running), it might be advisable to have the dealer do a computer check on your VQ.

!PrjctMax!

iTrader: (38)

about an hour of running?!

SilverMax_04

It depends on how long it takes for the complete system to warm up. In cold weather that is longer, in hot weather, shorter. Once it warms up, the water should all be in vapor form and only visable when the outside weather allows you to see moisture.

!PrjctMax!

iTrader: (38)

ya, thats what i was kinda thinking too but just wasnt sure, because with me it would take llike 20-30 minutes of highway driving to "wamr" everything up and this was in 25-35 degree weather

bikerbeng

My 06 will emite dark smoke as well when I stomp it. I am not too worried as the oil and other fluids are fine. I do think it is funny to watch cars behind me slow way down after they were "smoked".

MAX2DAMAX

iTrader: (5)

Like i said we are not driving hydrogen cars,
http://www.madsci.org/posts/archives...4809.Ch.r.html
it say here that you would get those components on a control environment, "lab", and your link does not put all the other components that are in the actual air we breathe every day, ... and thats why we need this,,

https://www.chemistry.org/portal/a/c...a56ed9fe800100

what this means to me is, that we have a super catalytic converter, converting most of our exhaust gases to water vapor, wich we should be proud of ,,,, but that raises another question, for people that drive short distances every day, you might be building up some water in your exhaust system, thus giving you the posibility of rust,
just my .02