1996 Pontiac Bonneville White smoke

SEXYYOUNGDADDY

MEMBER
1996 PONTIAC BONNEVILLE
6 CYL
FWD
AUTOMATIC
120,000 MILES

My brother never had a problem with his car up to now he was driving and notice alot of white smoke coming from his tail pipe so he pull off into the gas station and shut his car off. Well he check his car and notice he had no anti freeze at all so he put some in then started his car it was sounding like it was going to stall with it did then he try to start it agian and it won't even try to start, the starters fine we check that, people are telling us it is the head casket but then why was there no anti freeze when he check, my dad fill it couple weeks ago. My brother said when he was driving the car wasn't over heating. What do we have to do to fix this?

Monday, March 3rd, 2008 AT 10:31 PM

1 Reply

SERVICE WRITER

MECHANIC
9,123 POSTS

The 3.8 motors are notoriorious for intake manifold problems. Don't fool around with this as I have seen them allow enough coolant to get into the cylinders and cause a hydrolic lock up.

The manifold self-destructs on the top passenger side of the manifold where the poor engineering made for a pressure point for coolant to erode the plastic.

That would be my first suspicion.
If you pressure test the cooling system and see no external leaks, be sure to pull the plugs and spin the motor over to be sure there is no coolant in the cylinders. Look at the plugs carefully for abnormal conditions.

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Tuesday, March 4th, 2008 AT 4:49 AM