White Smoke from Tailpipe, Sweet smell (hot maple syrup), No Oil on dipstick, No Coolant in Reservoi

G

grizzlyandgirl

I have a 2002 Subaru Ouback wagon. It has 100,232 miles on it.
*Embarressed* We have not had the 95,000 mile maintenance service on
the vehicle done yet (husband unemployed for three months= no $), but
we do have the oil changed every 3,000 miles, and we did have the
65,000 miles service performed on the vehicle.
We have had a problem with catalytic converter since about 79,000
miles, but that is a seperate issue, I believe and we are going to
take it to a muffler shop when we get our tax return.
What we are experiencing lately is a problem with the engine and my
husband seems to belive that it is the head gasket. In this forum, I
looked up head gasket issues and have noticed that consistently,
people with subaru's that are having the head gasket's replaced also
have overheating issues. We do not have a overheating issue.
The car runs and performs great. . . you actually wouldn't be able to
know anything was wrong with it besides the sweet smell we just
noticed about a week ago. I checked the fluid levels just yesterday
and noticed that there was absolutely no coolant in the reservoir
anymore. When I filled the reservoir with water, however, the water
changed to a green color, which leads me to belive that there is still
coolant in the system. Then I also check the oil level, and the
dipstick was completely dry. I just had the car service for an oil
change this afternoon, so I will be monitoring that, but these two
issues have me concerned, and I was hoping I could get some assistance
from some who might have or is having the same problem.
In addition, to the sweet smell, no coolant and no oil, there is also
white smoke coming out of the tailpipe. After the car is warmed up the
white smoke is no longer there at idle, but consistant when the engine
is at an rpm of 1500 or higher, especially when it's reviving. (When
the car is parked, enginge on, and you engage the idler, white smoke
pours out of the tailpipe.)
Any ideas?
 
Cold weather outside?

Is the coolant level still going down?

The sweet smell is not a good sympton. Leads me to think about a
coolant leak. Is the smell coming out the exhaust pipe? Engine area?

Good luck.
 
What we are experiencing lately is a problem with the engine and my
husband seems to belive that it is the head gasket. In this forum, I
looked up head gasket issues and have noticed that consistently,
people with subaru's that are having the head gasket's replaced also
have overheating issues. We do not have a overheating issue.


You're losing coolant somewhere though. I'd have the dealer look at
it and perform a test to see if the head gasket has let go. If it
has, the warranty should cover it.

coolant in the system. Then I also check the oil level, and the
dipstick was completely dry. I just had the car service for an oil
change this afternoon, so I will be monitoring that, but these two
issues have me concerned, and I was hoping I could get some assistance
from some who might have or is having the same problem.
In addition, to the sweet smell, no coolant and no oil, there is also
white smoke coming out of the tailpipe. After the car is warmed up the
white smoke is no longer there at idle, but consistant when the engine
is at an rpm of 1500 or higher, especially when it's reviving. (When
the car is parked, enginge on, and you engage the idler, white smoke
pours out of the tailpipe.)
Any ideas?

You've got some serious engine concerns here on a model prone to head
gasket problems. I wouldn't take the lack of overheating as an all
clear on that. I'd take it to the dealer to be looked at and I'd tell
them that you've noticed oil consumption, and coolant consumption, and
have noticed the sweet smell and smoke. That should focus their
efforts pretty quickly on the known achilles heel of the car -- the
head gasket. And I believe with th recall, the head gasket is
warranted for 100k?

It shouldn't cost you anything to get an estimate from the dealer on
this work at any rate, and there's a decent chance it may all be
warranty work.
 
You're losing coolant somewhere though. I'd have the dealer look at
it and perform a test to see if the head gasket has let go. If it
has, the warranty should cover it.


You've got some serious engine concerns here on a model prone to head
gasket problems. I wouldn't take the lack of overheating as an all
clear on that. I'd take it to the dealer to be looked at and I'd tell
them that you've noticed oil consumption, and coolant consumption, and
have noticed the sweet smell and smoke. That should focus their
efforts pretty quickly on the known achilles heel of the car -- the
head gasket. And I believe with th recall, the head gasket is
warranted for 100k?

It shouldn't cost you anything to get an estimate from the dealer on
this work at any rate, and there's a decent chance it may all be
warranty work.

There was a recall on OBW 2000 - 2003 models - "special cooling
conditioner" ( actually sort of bar's stop leak) was supposed to be
added to the coolant. Then HG warranty was to be extended to 100k
miles. Your Outback just clocked on 100k , so even if you will do ( or
did) the recall operation - warranty coverage is gone. Yes - judging
from symptoms it is a bad HG ( or both HGs). One thing worries me -
the white smoke from tailpipe. Are you sure it wasn't there every
winter? If not - you HGs leak through cylinder fire rings . It's
called "internal HG failure" - quite unusual for 2.5 l SOHC second
generation Subaru engines. Normally those engines seep the coolant and
oil externally , and as long as you keep an eye on levels of both, and
add as needed and - moreover - you change your driving habits to a
"lightfootedness" you should be fine. Unless you can't stand that
maple syrup smell..... Normally the engine should lose coolant in the
winter and oil in the summer. If it loses both regardless of the
season, you may have a massive leak ( not just a seepage). And - if my
worst scenario is true ( i.e. you have an internal leak), the car is
basically "total loss".But I hope you are wrong about that deadly
"while smoke"....
Keep my fingers crossed for you guys.
kd
 
Ok, so I have some good news and some bad news. I drove to the post
office today, and I checked all of the fluid levels before I left and
then I checked them when I came back. The oil was fine, but I had lost
1/2'' of collant out of the reservoir tank. Still smelling the sweet
smell, and now it's kind of smelling like burning metal, but my
husband says I'm being paranoid. Anyway, we took it up to La Center,
WA which is about 20 miles from our house (the post office is 20 miles
round trip from our house) and we parked it on the street and it
happened to be in a spot that had dry pavement. It's been raining a
lot here. So before we left, I had my husband move the car, and sure
enough we found two tiny 1'' round drops on the pavement and it was
coolant. So now we now we have a coolant leak.
Next thing, I had my husband drive home andI drove behind him. The
white smoke was only present when he pressed the gas pedal down to
speed up quickly. As far as being "lightfooded", I am the slowest,
most paranoid driver ever. I would rather go 10 miles under the speed
limit than waste trying to get ahead of someone, especially if my 8
month old is in the car. However, I can take to heart what kd is
saying because my husband has a lead foot, and loves to see what it
can do at red line.
Anyway, that doesn't fix my problem now. Are there any tests or places
I can look to identify the problem before I take it to the dealer. The
dealer that we bought it from is 40 miles away in Longview. The next
closet dealership is still 30 miles away but I wouldn't trust them
with my car.
Thanks for all your help and input. I appreciate it!
 
Cold weather outside?

Is the coolant level still going down?

The sweet smell is not a good sympton. Leads me to think about a
coolant leak. Is the smell coming out the exhaust pipe? Engine area?

Good luck.
I

I don't know where it is coming from. I think it's coming from the
engine, not the tailpipe. I only seem to smell it when I am driving,
or when the car is parked and turned off.
 
Grizzlyandgirl said:
Ok, so I have some good news and some bad news. I drove to the post
office today, and I checked all of the fluid levels before I left and
then I checked them when I came back. The oil was fine, but I had lost
1/2'' of collant out of the reservoir tank. Still smelling the sweet
smell, and now it's kind of smelling like burning metal, but my
husband says I'm being paranoid. Anyway, we took it up to La Center,
WA which is about 20 miles from our house (the post office is 20 miles
round trip from our house) and we parked it on the street and it
happened to be in a spot that had dry pavement. It's been raining a
lot here. So before we left, I had my husband move the car, and sure
enough we found two tiny 1'' round drops on the pavement and it was
coolant. So now we now we have a coolant leak.
Next thing, I had my husband drive home andI drove behind him. The
white smoke was only present when he pressed the gas pedal down to
speed up quickly. As far as being "lightfooded", I am the slowest,
most paranoid driver ever. I would rather go 10 miles under the speed
limit than waste trying to get ahead of someone, especially if my 8
month old is in the car. However, I can take to heart what kd is
saying because my husband has a lead foot, and loves to see what it
can do at red line.
Anyway, that doesn't fix my problem now. Are there any tests or places
I can look to identify the problem before I take it to the dealer. The
dealer that we bought it from is 40 miles away in Longview. The next
closet dealership is still 30 miles away but I wouldn't trust them
with my car.
Thanks for all your help and input. I appreciate it!

witht he age of your car and the lack of the 90k service, check the
condition of the upper and lower radiator hoses. Are they dry rotted
or cracked? Losing fluid from there?

Try to see where in the engine this coolant is dripping from. If it's
around the engine block, then it's the head gasket....

Sweet smell from teh exhaust is telling us though that coolant is
being combusted I think... and that's a telltale of headgasket. You
don't want to let that go because coolant breaks down oil viscocity
and then you get ring failure, with ring failure you get oil blow by
and blue smoke in the exhaust. And a big ass repair bill if you need
to replace the piston rings.
 
Check the hose clamps on the upper radiator hose for tightness.
Hopefully they're not original. Use a flat blade screwdriver, or a
5/16 flex socket and extension if it's hard to get at. The upper rad
hose can drip slowly onto the block, and the coolant gets vaporized
and pulled into the fresh air intake. This makes the smell very
noticeable. There can be several other hose connections leaking as
well. The intake gasket can also be a problem.

Yes, external head gasket leaks are a problem with this car. I don't
think there is a water-cooled flat 4 that didn't have some kind of
head gasket problem. Even the old Subarus required re-torquing head
bolts as part of routine maintenance. I think abandoning this
practice could be part of the problem.

Also, a lot of water vapor comes out of tailpipes on start. It's just
a normal condition for modern emissions cars. You want to be sure
that it is white smoke and not water vapor. If you are actually
burning coolant, you should see it at high engine vacuum on a hot
engine. Go down a hill in low gear with your foot off the throttle,
and look behind you (or have someone follow) for the white smoke.

Take heart, even if it is the worst case scenario, I've seen these new
fixes in a bottle for head and block leaks that just involves a few
flushes and the uncorking of the can. You're probably only shooting
for another 50-100 K anyway.
 
Also, a lot of water vapor comes out of tailpipes on start. It's just
a normal condition for modern emissions cars. You want to be sure
that it is white smoke and not water vapor.

Actually, that white smoke at startup IS water vapor. The difference is
in the quantity and duration. The 'normal' white smoke should be fairly
thin and quit after about 2 minutes or seeing the temp gauge rising
noticeably. Coolant leaking into the combustion chamber is usually dense
and gets worse as the engine warms up.
 
Localized boiling water can bring a sweet smell if against metal. pinholing
Headgasket in other words...
keep after the fluids. Given income problems run it easy, idle till fan
kicks on. There is always crud in the system to try and repair itself.
Do not add stop leak stuff unless it is subarus (and even then I don't use
it)
Good Luck.
Tell that husband to get off his ass and get a job the lazy bum!
 
Ok, this is griz. First of all to bgd I was a city maintance worker.
The budget ran out and my position was termanated but this month the
city had my position back and I applied for my job back. Now, you can
insert your foot in your mouth!

Anyway, back to the car. The car only has white smoke when it is
started from condensation in the cat's. It goes away once the car is
warm. Second we use synthetic oil. It is my wifes car. I had no idea
she had 6000 miles on that oil, so the no oil was from consumption
from the motor. (6000 miles and 1 qt lost? That's decent for 100000
miles) There is no oil leak except for a tiny bit of ceapedge in the
summer. If we go to a different oil weight it will go away.

The sweet smell is collant coming out of the drivers side head gasket.
I went to check "all data"/and "mithcel on demand". When I went there
I saw that 2000-2003 Subaru OBW with 2.5 had drivers side head gasket
problems. Previous to those years Subaru had the 2.2 which is a much
better motor in my opinion. Now some 1998-2000 had the 2.2, some had
the 2.5. So not all are 2.2.

Now back to ours. . . There is no water in the oil. One more thing
from all data the head bolts are strech thead so if you dont replace
them you will get another head gasket leak
 
UPDATE:

We took the car to a Subaru dealer, not exactly in our area, but they
were the only ones who agreed not to charge us $100 to put it on a
lift, look under the car, and identify the problem. They were really
great- it was Gresham Nissan Subaru.

I dropped the car off in the morning and it was ready by 2pm.

We DID have a head gasket leak, but it was not leaking into the motor.
It was only leaking on the outside on the muffler, which was causing
the smell and smoke. Apparrently, this is really common for our year
and model because Subaru neglected to put a conditioner into the
coolant when it was first made. So we were told.

They performed a coolant flush and added the $2.50 conditioner to the
coolant, and this is supposed to close up the small hole we have. If
it does not we can come back and have it fixed under warranty. This
was covered under warranty as well even though our car has over
100,000 miles. Maybe that was because we called when it was first
happening, under 100,000 miles and started a claim. I'm not sure, just
grateful.

I hope this helps someone else out there with a similar problem. I
want to thank everyone for their input, it was much appreciated and
most of it was right on target with what we were told at the
dealership.
 
Grizzlyandgirl said:
UPDATE:

We took the car to a Subaru dealer, not exactly in our area, but they
were the only ones who agreed not to charge us $100 to put it on a
lift, look under the car, and identify the problem. They were really
great- it was Gresham Nissan Subaru.

I dropped the car off in the morning and it was ready by 2pm.

We DID have a head gasket leak, but it was not leaking into the motor.
It was only leaking on the outside on the muffler, which was causing
the smell and smoke. Apparrently, this is really common for our year
and model because Subaru neglected to put a conditioner into the
coolant when it was first made. So we were told.

Hee hee. Well that's turd polishing by the dealer. Subaru neglected
to add it when it was first made because most vehicles don't need such
bandaids to keep the head gaskets together. :) They perhaps
started adding it at the factory on later model years when they
learned that the design was problematic.
They performed a coolant flush and added the $2.50 conditioner to the
coolant, and this is supposed to close up the small hole we have. If
it does not we can come back and have it fixed under warranty. This
was covered under warranty as well even though our car has over
100,000 miles. Maybe that was because we called when it was first
happening, under 100,000 miles and started a claim. I'm not sure, just
grateful.

Cool. I'd be hyper vigilant in looking for the leak and trying to
get it actually replaced rather than this stop leak bandaid crap if at
all possible. Dn't lose sleep over it, but it beats having to pay
for it when the gasket inevitably fails.
I hope this helps someone else out there with a similar problem. I
want to thank everyone for their input, it was much appreciated and
most of it was right on target with what we were told at the
dealership.

Thanks for following up--great to have more data points like this.
 

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