Hi
Had my MX5 for a week or so now.
My question relates to the white smoke coming from the exhaust pipe. I haven’t had a major runout in the car yet as am a little concerned about the white smoke. I’ve changed the plugs and ignition leads (not related I know) and will be changing the oil and filter when it is returned from the garage to have some bodywork fettled. Don’t know if the oil change will help.
Oil seems quite dirty and there is quite a bit of rattle from the engine which i believe to be hla clatter. When i changed the plugs I noticed that one of them was quite oily - could this be a clue?
I let the car warm up for about 10 mins before I took it to the garage tonight for the bodywork assessment hoping the white smoke would eventually disappear - when driving to the garage about half a mile away the smoke didn’t go away - and if I put my foot down it got slightly worse.
Any ideas - please don’t say TERMINAL!!!
Do the oil change! But to be honest, depends how long the car was sitting before you bought it… Could just be water in the exhaust to be fair. It might be terminal but probably isn’t. See if it’s using water…
White smoke is usually steam, which indicates water burning off somewhere. If the weather is really cold you can get loads of steam appearing as mositure evaporates from the exhaust pipe, and it can take quite a while for this to burn off - I wouldn’t think 1/2 a mile would be enough - if you look at any car on a really cold day you can see that even those that have been running for ages can show lots of steam in the exhaust. The other possibility is that it’s burning engine coolant, which is much worse.
Assuming that it shows no signs of overheating and the engine coolant level is OK (and there’s no white gunk around the oil filler cap or the radiator cap) then you’d be best to take it for a long run to get everything nice and warm and see the smoke stops. Warming it up when stationary probably won’t help - much better to just start driving gently and warm the whole car up at once.
If it’s burning engine coolant then you’ll know soon enough - it will either overheat or the fluid level in the expansion tank and / or rad will drop / disappear - happened to my 5 when I first got it and after about 12 miles the temperature shot up and all the coolant poured out of the expansion bottle. Worst case is a new engine, but they’re only £250 from a breakers or £350 recon 
HLA clatter is normally loud for a second or two until the HLAs fill up, then should quieten down as the engine gets warm - an oil change should certainly help, perhaps to a slightly thinner oil such as 5W40. You can also put an additive in the engine oil - Wynns do a specific additive for HLAs, Halfords sell it and you just pour it into the engine through the oil filler cap.
Checking all of the documentation, the car has only done about 2000 miles in the past year. Does sitting around not doing a lot result in this type of problem? From what I can tell it’s not using water. The car does seem to be reasonably ‘fit’ in terms of performance.
Regarding the TERMINAL word - does that mean replacing the whole engine or just certain parts?
Is it smoke or just condensation. I would say take it for a good run , get everything nice and warm and see what it is like then. Dont wish to alarm you but white smoke is usually caused by water being burned/heated ie head gasket. If you are not using any coolant then most likely it.s condensation in the exhaust.
sorry - things seem to have gone a litlle out of synch - my reply was to the first repsonse
It does seem to be smoke rather than condensation - i had a car with a blown head gasket once and the smoke coming from the 5 seems far less
Hello, the weather round Durham has been quite wet/cold so I would tend to subscribe to the condensation point at the moment. My car is outside all the time and it tends to take 4 or 5 miles before the exhaust clears of the white smoke, you mentioned letting the car warm up 10 minutes or so, but sometimes it won’t clear the condensation when the car is idling and quite often just leads to more build up unless the cars had a blast, the cat (not sure if yours has) and the pipe shapes can also build up some of the moisture and even the direction of the car on a slope for example can puddle condensation if the cars only ran for a short time, without decent engine speed. I have motor bikes and they are both the same but OK in warmer weather. If you are losing no fluids then its probably this.
Try putting a bit of cloth/carboard near the exhaust end,or “oven gloved” hand, being careful not to burn anything and usually its easy to see if its smoke or condensation due to smell or discolouration - try it at start up and then after a run to see if you get a difference in smell or soot levels etc, again be careful not to burn yourself.
From memory, you mentioned an oily plug, on my old cars it was some oil being pushed past the rings / or down the valve guides on a cylinder overnight, so quite smoky on start up but then clearing later - go for a run, return take the plug out+clean, replace and repeat the run and check - if oily, I would tend to go down this route.
Oil in one spark plug hole could quite likely be just an old or badly fitted cam-cover gasket - £12 for a new one and very simple to replace, you just need a spanner to undo the cover bolts and little squirts of silicone sealant around the corners of the camshaft caps.
http://www.mx5parts.co.uk/product_info.php/products_id/240
Keep a very close watch on the coolant level. Do not rely on a look in the overflow tank. When the engine is stone cold take the pressure cap off the rad and make sure that the coolant is up to the top of the filler neck. Don’t totally rely on the temp gauge, on a '5 they are mainly an indicator of more or less where normal is, if the car overheats you may well see the steam before the temp gauge hits that hot mark
Thanks for all the advice guys - a busy weekend ahead.
Had some interesting news from the garage today - they said they’d repair the rotten sill but were unable to carry out any respraying at all - i requested the sill to be repainted (obviously once the repair had been carried out) the wing to be repainted as it looked like like someone had cleaned it with wire wool and the boot lid to be repainted as all of the lacquer is peeling of.
Said they wouldn’t do it because silver is impossible to match. Are they kidding or is this a problem others have experienced with silver mx5’s.?
No idea about the spray painting, but I see you’re in County Durham - I’m quite near Durham so if you see a slightly tatty red Eunos with black wheels (and probably with the roof down and a very cold looking driver) then it may well be me!
Mines a silver, scratched, peeling sill-less smokey mx5 running around the bishop auckland and darlington area
A decent bodyshop should be able to match the paint, sounds like they can’t be bothered to try or trying to get more cash (mind you painting cars is not my forte looking at mine…)
Anyway to join in the thread, mines a slightly scruffy, rusty wheelarched and blebbed sill, green MX5 running on scratched alloys around north Durham and Tyneside, so maybe see you around.
Not sure if you saw but people from the Tyne/Tees club have organised a tech day at North Shields on the 7th Feb, maybe 10 or so minutes from the tyne tunnel - they seem like knowledgable owners from the posts so maybe contact them or turn up for a chat if they are OK with it, they might be able to advise local places for service or paint.
I really must start waving to a few MX5s and Eunoses and see if any wave back. A BRG mk1 has just appeared on a driveway near me (next to a nice looking Ford Capri) but I’ve not seen it move yet.
Took the 5 out for a proper runabout today - lo and behold, within about 5 minutes no smoke. Hate it when people say I told you so - but never mind - i’m sure someone said I needed to have a proper run out earlier in the post - yes you were right, told me so.
Nice one
Good to here thats all you had to do.
Phil
1991 J1 Ltd
A neighbour with taste [Y]… if there is a better combination that a BRG MK1 i have yet to see it.
Not that i`m biased of course [;)]
Blade, the comment about silver being hard to match is not really true, though as said, it would not be the first time a bodyshop had used it as a reason to up the price.
The only one I keep clear of is Vauxhall’s Starsilver which changes about every month! From my database I see there have been 3 variations to the Silver Stone colour your car probably is (paint code 3L or 4G on the VIN plate under the bonnet) and should not be a problem for most good operators to match. Have a look at some of the silver cars I have worked on at - www.morethanjustchips.com to see what can be done.
Glad the white smoke has cleared up.
Peter