Changeover VY engine blows smoke on start up had engine only 5 weeks

[muso]

Take the written receipt with you, when you go to get the motor checked.....They have guaranteed the engine is good for 3 months, which clearly the engine isn't, if it's blowing blue smoke (burnt oil).....get back to us, once you have done that and take it from there

BTW, something written in black and white, outweighs a silly text message any day of the week

Yeah, he didn't even mention the 30 days thing, he sounded a bit concerned and suggested valve stem seals and is looking at it later this week. If it were a 30 day warranty he would have pretty much said sorry not my problem. As I keep saying they are a pretty good mob who have been there for ages, I'd be surprised if they didn't honour the written warranty, it's in their own best interest to do so.

 

[CONROD]

That's good mate, if its only stem seals all good. Get them to replace them easy enough without removing the heads, and you,ll find all will be good. But for peace of mind have a compression test done, preferably by someone else other than the place you got the engine off, if its all within specs all good, if not then get them to do one so they can see first hand.

 

[EYY]

What sort of oil are you running?

Btw, backfiring and running poorly on gas won't really damage anything other than the lpg mixer, intake hose, maf and airbox. Of course, if you run it lean enough for long enough it'll start running too hot and melting things.

I'd be inclined to make sure you get it looked at asap so that you're still within the warranty period if you find out that the engine needs to be replaced. I've only ever seen one commodore smoke, and that was mine about 3 months before the engine died. It's not a very common thing with ecotecs.

It might even be smoking when it's warmed up too. Catalytic converters will fully burn the residual oil when they get up to temperature (to a degree).

 

[bcw61]

A real long shot here: is it possible that any of the 'popping'/'backfiring' may have damaged the PCV? It might possibly explain some of the issues here.

Like I said, a reallllllly long shot here.

 

[muso]

I thought about that to but it appears to have used up/burnt about 1 litre of oil in 4 weeks. Is there a way of testing the PCV?

 

[EYY]

Pull it out and shake it........

Check for blowby. With the engine idling, pull the oil cap off and put a piece of paper/cardboard over the fill hole. If it is sucked in and held against the rocker cover, blowby shouldn't be a problem. If it blows off, there's something wrong.

 

[Bowen]

And if the place "fixes it " and still blows heaps of smoke grab the lead mechanic and

Pull it out and shake it........

 

[muso]

Pull it out and shake it........

Check for blowby. With the engine idling, pull the oil cap off and put a piece of paper/cardboard over the fill hole. If it is sucked in and held against the rocker cover, blowby shouldn't be a problem. If it blows off, there's something wrong.

I did the blowby test as you said and the engine sucked the piece of cardboard and held it against the oil filler hole. The idling dropped considerably until I covered the filler hole with cardboard then the idling rose back to normal. I haven't unscrewed the PCV and shaken it though.

Another thing is no matter how hard I try I get no plumes of smoke after coasting down a long hill then applying throttle, nor do I get any smoke if flooring it up a hill. I only get the blue smoke upon start ups but not every start up.................yesterday morning it didn't do it, this morning it did.

What I will do until the mechanic looks at it is do a wet and dry compression test, my compression tester is not a great one, just a push into spark plug hole instead of a threaded one, but it's done the job in the past.

 

[muso]

Pull it out and shake it........

But not in public lol

 

[muso]

I didn't do the compression test because I need to adapt my gauge over to a screw in fitting, the push in type is a pain to use and not accurate. I wonder where I could get the fittings from.

I also noticed fresh oil on the left hand side rocker cover, it appears that fresh oil has been leaking from the throttle body where the gas venturi connects to the throttle body, how is fresh unburnt oil ending up there?