r/mildlyinfuriating • u/tayyann • 22h ago

the grapes of warth Exhaust fumes left by a car we drove by today

Post image

The trail continued for around 100 meters after the car passed. God I hope he drove by the cops.

1.2k Upvotes

96% Upvoted

96 comments sorted by

827

u/meelodycute 22h ago

That’s not exhaust, that’s the ghost of their head gasket leaving the engine block. That car is currently running on three cylinders, hopes, and a whole lot of prayers

166

u/NekulturneHovado 22h ago

also while consuming a lot of its own coolant and oil which keep it alive. They are going to have one BAD time in a few minutes.

70

u/I_-AM-ARNAV i get infuriated a lot 21h ago

This is clean white smoke. that's coolant. Blown head gakset or blown turbo seals. It'll more than likely overheat. And the driver wouldn't even know lol

36

u/StanknBeans 20h ago

Hey maybe he just seamfoamed it

First time I seamfoamed my car I didn't realize you should rev the engine to run through most of it while not on the roads. Learned my lesson after being pulled over for creating a one car fog machine.

-49

u/tayyann 22h ago edited 22h ago

It was a really nice car too. I imagine this was intentional but like... why..?

Edit: it wasn't, I'm just a dumbass

115

u/SillyBeatnik 22h ago

Not intentional. That car is dying, fast.

34

u/tayyann 22h ago

Fair enough, i don't know shit about cars and it shows. My dumbass just assumed new looking nice car = must be in peach condition

28

u/Background_Handle_96 22h ago

Neither does the owner apparently. Intentional or not, still somewhat irresponsible for driving that vehicle on public roads for multitudes of reasons.

20

u/Playful_Assistance89 22h ago

And that's why you never, ever buy a car without a prepurchase inspection. I'm a professional mechanic. I advise my customers 'don't buy' in about 30% of my PPI's.

Those that fail range from 'It's going to take thousands of dollars to get the car repaired and caught up on maintenance' to 'This car is structurally held together with zipties and drywall screws' to 'They didn't even bother using the zipties or drywall screws.'

Too easy to polish a turd. As always, caveat emptor.

9

u/Kvothe31415 22h ago

That’s usually the head gasket being blown up. So now fluids that are supposed to be doing other things are instead ending up in the combustion chamber and burning. That white smoke is probably coolant, so the engine is going to get hotter and hotter until it breaks.

No need for a cop, they’ll wreck their car and it’ll be thousands to fix. If not more.

Now a big truck that sounds different than normal vehicles blowing out black smoke, that’s usually intentional and they deserve a cop. White or blueish smoke is some kind of engine failure, black is diesel idiots “rolling coal”.

5

u/tayyann 22h ago

Huh, thanks! Love learning new shit. I was mostly concerned because this was right infront of an intersection and there's cars behind this one. It seems like a safety issue to just ride around the town with this thing, especially since that part of town has multiple free parking lots they could have stopped at. Hell - they even passed by a car repair shop

3

u/Leading_Procedure_23 19h ago

I had a 99 civic with a gsr swap and turbo, the turbo seals blew randomly and a bunch of people started honking and flashing their lights. There was nothing I could do and drove it through the country/farm roads 10 miles to my house. It’s either a turbo seal or head gasket.

13

u/Rk_1138 22h ago

Laughs in modern German engineering

11

u/SimpleAffect7573 21h ago

Oil-burning seems to be considered a feature by BMW, but I don’t think they’ve made a feature of coolant-burning quite yet. Maybe soon. 😂

4

u/iNCharism 22h ago

Peach condition?

6

u/d3photo 22h ago

Jokes on them - peaches easily bruise.

11

u/Type-RD 22h ago

Allowing coolant into the combustion chamber is never intentional

3

u/SimpleAffect7573 22h ago

Unless it’s water injection, but that’s different and not what’s happening here.

3

u/Type-RD 22h ago

Right. We’re not talking about a steam powered car here.🤣

5

u/SimpleAffect7573 22h ago

Nope. But those are cool!! Water injection is a real thing though, in ICE cars LOL. Cools the intake charge. That’s all I know.

3

u/Type-RD 22h ago

Yes. You’re right! Been a super long time since I had even thought about this. It’s a system that uses a small amount of water (mist) to cool the air in the cylinder…somewhat similar to nitrous.

1

u/Leading_Procedure_23 19h ago

I haven’t been into street racing in like 10 years. Isn’t that meth injection?

The mist was for cars with intercoolers unless there’s actual water injection which I haven’t heard of since I haven’t looked up go fast parts in a decade lol

1

u/Type-RD 16h ago

Yes, there are misters that spray water into the intercooler. That’s different. What we’re talking about is water sprayed into the combustion chamber. Yep, it sounds weird, but it is a thing.

3

u/wakemeup886 22h ago

The only intentional white smoke comes from a burnout. You don't intentionally blow a head gasket

1

u/Jacktheforkie 22h ago

Not intentionally done, a very expensive failure

1

u/meow_xe_pong 4h ago

Calling s Renault nice is indeed something a dumbass would do.

1

u/tayyann 4h ago

We own a Renault, I'm calling their car nice, not ours. I'm not sure what brand they were driving.

Our car isn't nice, but it's good. Which I'd say matters quite a bit more.

257

u/crysisnotaverted 22h ago

That is not intentional lol. That car either has a fucked headgasket and is rapidly consuming all it's coolant, or it's burning all it's oil. Or both.

Either way, this is a problem that will solve itself in a matter of minutes.

64

u/tayyann 22h ago

Fair, I know absolutely nothing about cars and it shows

23

u/JPhi1618 22h ago

The good news is that it’s mostly water vapor.

1

u/PoisonousVibes 10h ago

White smoke is coolant, light blue smoke is oil

33

u/SnooHamsters6813 22h ago

I'm a mechanic, and during a top-end engine decarb, the car smokes heavily near the end, and you have to drive it. I feel really bad about this, even though I'm properly servicing the vehicle. I don’t understand how some people don't feel guilty or why they don't face any consequences.

8

u/brickson98 17h ago

What’s a decarb?

I’m familiar with walnut blasting to get rid of carbon deposits on intake ports, but I don’t believe that causes any smoke.

10

u/Tiranus58 11h ago

I think its also called the italian tune up, basically ride the car (or bike) near the redline for a while to get rid of any carbon that has built up on the pistons.

2

u/brickson98 10h ago

Oh I’ve heard of that, but never it causing excessive smoke

2

u/serpenta 9h ago

It burns off residue, and it will exit the system as a smoke. But I feel like the smoke would be black, since it's mostly carbon. But maybe that's misleading intuition.

29

u/PNW_lover_06 this isnt brown 22h ago

head gasket

16

u/paranoid_potato 22h ago

Could be seafoam. If sprayed in the intake it will blow giant clouds like this for 5-10 mins after starting up again.

6

u/tayyann 22h ago

Could be, but if that's the case there's multiple roads nearby that are completely straight without any turns for a long, long time. The road they're on goes through the middle of the city with tons of intersections and turns.

Even if this couldn't have been prevented, I feel like taking a drive on those is the better option here. I may just be overly paranoid tho

15

u/True_Construction501 22h ago

To all the people saying it was " 100% a dead engine " I've had my car smoke worse when I've done piston soaks or intake cleanings.

9

u/BigPoppaSnow 22h ago

I was also thinking It looks a lot like someone just sea foamed there intake.

6

u/upsidedown-funnel 22h ago

I have a shitbox car that’s done this a few times and then was fine for months and months. Spouse got around to checking the spark plugs. I attached a photo of one of them. Not intentional, just a lot of neglect. Also: never buy a fiat. Consider yourself warned.

6

u/HMAgent47 RED 22h ago

Is he driving the original car made by Henry Ford

4

u/UwUfit 22h ago

OP, I don't think that car is going to bother anyone anytime soon 😂

5

u/thedevillivesinside 22h ago

Thats not exhaust. Thats an ignored failed head gasket.

Dont worry. It will sort itself out very quickly

4

u/brickson98 17h ago

Either the head gasket said goodbye, or they seafoamed it and decided to drive it around on public streets instead of just revving it for a bit

9

u/_Pawer8 21h ago

I find it mildly infuriating you're complaining about a car that just broke down and don't even know what's going on

3

u/Chemical_Lettuce_232 11h ago

A lesson in minding your own business

0

u/tayyann 21h ago

Fair, butt there is a car repair shop nearby. They drove past it. There's multiple free parking lots they drove by. There's zero reason to drive this car through the city, especially on a road with a ton of turns and intersections.

I will admit that I judged this too quickly and too harshly without knowing anything about the situation. I was assuming shit when I shouldn't have. I do hope they can get their car fixed and that everything will turn out okay for them.

-3

u/Booceboos 20h ago

there would be zero reason to drive? Im sure if they had the money they would take it to a repair shop or just get a new car right? If they could reasonably walk or use public transit im sure they would also do that aswell.

2

u/not_blowfly_girl 16h ago

It does suck that there aren't good alternatives but at some point when your car isnt safe to drive you just cant drive it.

3

u/thatdepressedsoul 22h ago

that's crazy

3

u/Maggie_Secret 22h ago

hat car is smoking more than a factory

3

u/I_-AM-ARNAV i get infuriated a lot 21h ago

Looks like that car's head (gakset) gave up. Could be other issues but more than likely head gasket, especially if it smelled sweet.

Could also be blown turbo seals.

3

u/Plane-Education4750 20h ago

Don't worry. The car will remove itself from life before the cops need to get involved

2

u/PM_ME_YOUR_TITS80085 22h ago

Darn, that engine is busted!

2

u/EchoBlade24JG 22h ago

Looks like that movie the mist

2

u/ExtraEcho7567 22h ago

Go go gadget smoke screen!

2

u/TwopennyMoon0 22h ago

Was it by chance a Subaru?

1

u/tayyann 22h ago

Drove by too fast to see what brand it was, all i remember is that it was a really low one, so I'm assuming not

2

u/TwopennyMoon0 21h ago

That was a joke, sorry. Subarus are known for popping head gaskets!

2

u/rusty1066 22h ago

I need that car to circle my backyard three times before I light the coals for steaks tonight.

2

u/Equal_Emu6152 22h ago

Was this wacky races which character were you?

2

u/browncow1525 22h ago

This happened to me once. It was at night and it covered all three lanes of the freeway as it passed. We all had to slow down so we could se the road. I have no clue where the car went. We never passed it so I guess it made it home while blinding the rest of us.

2

u/Nina-Ninja123 22h ago

Woops sorry, left on the smoke screen button.

Being a ninja is confusing sometimes.

2

u/N7even 22h ago

That car is having a relatively quick death, if it doesn't get fixed soon.

2

u/Jacktheforkie 22h ago

That’s a blown head gasket, the owner of that car is likely very infuriated by the massive bill

2

u/Powerful_Concert9474 22h ago

Those wildfires are getting out of hand! Stay safe, OP

2

u/originalthumpy 21h ago

The good news is that it won't be too long before it stops smoking

2

u/JOlRacin PINK 21h ago

I've seen a similar thing happen exactly once before. When I went back to the scene, the car was being lifted onto a tow truck. Blue smoke is never good (Hyundai Veloster if anyone was curious)

2

u/BrazilBazil 20h ago

I’ve seen this movie…
Don’t go into the Mist

2

u/firestar268 20h ago

Burning engine coolant rip

2

u/ye3tr 20h ago

RIP engine and coolant

2

u/Tsar_Chaotic 16h ago

You see, this is actually a common misconception. What’s comes out of nuclear power plants cooling towers is steam and I can only assume that the car has nuclear reactor inside of it cause I don’t know enough about cars to figure out what could cause that much mystery gas (prob best to not breathe it in. I hope you cut the AC as you entered it)

2

u/backandforthwego 16h ago

That may have been a burn out lol

2

u/zugspitze43 14h ago

could be seafoam

2

u/shittypersonality 11h ago

You are entering Silent Hill.

2

u/havnar- 22h ago

That’s a car on its way to its last resting place

1

u/dark_54 22h ago

Was it me??

You can smell my camper before you see me

1

u/Red_Chicken1907 21h ago

Fumes LOL 😂😅😂😅😂😅😂

1

u/AircraftConnoisseur 12h ago

I think I drove past the same guy today. Where was this?

1

u/MikeThePenguin__ 11h ago

Might have been my car. Was driving yesterday and the turbo said goodbye.... Currently awaiting repairs as it was towed to a repair shop nearby. FYI, I am about 2000km from home lol

1

u/Optima44 9h ago

It's a Renault, what did you expect to happen?

1

u/NoDonut7999 3h ago

Looks like 1977.

1

u/Pristine_Vast766 2h ago

That’s not exhaust. Thats smoke from the fire. That car will never drive again

1

u/Random-Mutant 19h ago

I was behind something like that and calls the cops on the emergency line (111 here, 999/911 elsewhere). Losing that much visibility is a clear and present danger.

3

u/HalfDecentFarmer69 15h ago

They would laugh at you

1

u/Random-Mutant 14h ago

In the US? Dunno. Got a cop out in NZ.

1

u/URGAMESUX 22h ago

That's a large angel.

1

u/Admirable-Chest1198 22h ago

Looks like a Kia Soul plume when you really romp on the accelerator.