1998 Nissan Altima

GORILLA030

MEMBER
1998 NISSAN ALTIMA
4 CYL
2WD
AUTOMATIC
107,000 MILES

When I start the car it is running very rough and it is throwing a
large amount of gas out the tailpipe. When I put my hand next to the tailpipe it gets soaked with gas in a couple of seconds. The smell from all that gas is very bad. I just had the valve cover gasket and the exhaust manifold gasket changed. I suspect it might
have something to do with the computer? The two gaskets were changed because after going on a long ride, 3 hours each way, the
car was running rough and white smoke was coming out the tailpipe. It seemed that the valve cover gasket was leaking onto the intake manifold. The gasket on the exhaust manifold was bad and the oil was getting in and burning out the tailpipe, causing the white smoke.

1 Reply

KHLOW2008

MECHANIC
41,815 POSTS

Hi gorilla030,

Thank you for the donation.

Oil being burnt in the engine and coming out the tail pipe are not caused by bad valve cover or exhaust manifold gaskets.

Oil being burnt are either caused by bad valve stem seals or piston rings and the rough running could be due to fouled spark plugs, caused by excessive oil gettin into the engine cylinders.

Since the smoking of the tail pipe is bad, you would have to replace the valve stem seals to reduce the oil consumption.

A compression leak down test would allow you to find out if the piston rings are bad.

I woud suggest getting a compression test done first.