A lot of smoke came out of the hood when I started my car?

NICOLEURBAN

MEMBER
1995 NISSAN MAXIMA
175,000 MILES

A lot of smoke came out of the hood when I started my car this morning. This has never happened before. I turned the car off, looked under the hood and everything what charcoal black. It smells burnt. I let it sit for 30 minutes. Started it up with no problems. It still smells. But I drove it around the block with no smoke. Is it safe to drive? What could be wrong with it?

1 Reply

KASEKENNY

MECHANIC
18,907 POSTS

Smoke under the hood is caused by oil or fluid on the exhaust or engine block or something was about to catch on fire.

So the fact that it was charcoal black then that is concerning. So we need to start with getting pictures of what the under hood area looks like as that will help get us on the same page.

Then we need to find out if the engine overheated or not.

https://www.2carpros.com/articles/symptoms-of-an-overheating-engine

Lastly we need to inspect for oil leaks. I understand it stopped smoking but if we have an oil leak then it may start smoking again so we need to try and track down any leak.

https://www.2carpros.com/articles/engine-is-leaking-oil

Please let us know what you find with this and we can go from there. Thanks