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White Smoke & 1st Gear Upto 4000rpm


wandawoods

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the car is 98 ES300 136k

after car parks a few hours (may not have be the 1st start in the morning) a big puff of white smoke will come out of the exhaust pipe, and it disappears after about 10~15sec.

1st gear runs to 3800~4000rpm before it will auto-shift to next gear. rpm needle swings unsually wide under normal driving condition.

can anyone give me a diagnosis?

thanks for your time!

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white smoke is coolant

i guess it is drippig down into the cylinders

you need to have a compression test to see which one it might be

but it more than likely is the head gasket leaking which may or may not show on a compression test

the rpms will rev high when the car is cold until it has warmed up it is natural for it

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white smoke is coolant

i guess it is drippig down into the cylinders

you need to have a compression test to see which one it might be

but it more than likely is the head gasket leaking which may or may not show on a compression test

the rpms will rev high when the car is cold until it has warmed up it is natural for it

thanks for the hints! will have the mechanic looking into them.

the 1st gear can go as high as 4000rpm even the car is running for more than 20~30 min!

it looks pretty weird that the RPM needle goes up and down with big swing unlike the SC400/LS400 and other non-lex cars I have. i'm just afraid something really bad is going on...

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ok if it is after 20-30 minutes then there is aproblem

it might be internal of the tranny

if the switch is not opening inside ot open the flow of hat tranny fluid to the cold part as it stay locked until warm

when i the last time you had the fluid changed

are you using the ect button?

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ok if it is after 20-30 minutes then there is aproblem

it might be internal of the tranny

if the switch is not opening inside ot open the flow of hat tranny fluid to the cold part as it stay locked until warm

when i the last time you had the fluid changed

are you using the ect button?

I did some more 'test driving' today. if O/D is on, and step on the gas hard, the 1st gear can go over *5000rpm* before 2nd gear will kick in! this thing is defenitely not normal! and this happened after 30-min worth of driving so it wasn't because of a 'cold' engine.

on the LS400 and SC400 I have, no matter how hard we hit the gas, the 1st gear w/OD on will never go over said 3K rpm before 2nd grear takes over! (one thing I can say is that the 400's are really fast cars!)

we just bought this ES300 about 3 weeks ago, and tran. fluid was flushed and changed about 2 weeks ago, and it was pretty bad. now I am worry it may have big time tranny problems.

looks like I got to get it checked on the double!

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White smoke can also be transmission fluid that is being burned to a leak into the manifold. This would translate to late shifts and gear slips which you seem to be experiencing. Check your trany fluid to see if it’s low if it fill it up and check it often to see if the level goes down. If it does that confirms you are burning trany fluid which will require some garage time. Unless you have skills.

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I did some more 'test driving' today. if O/D is on, and step on the gas hard, the 1st gear can go over *5000rpm* before 2nd gear will kick in! this thing is defenitely not normal! and this happened after 30-min worth of driving so it wasn't because of a 'cold' engine.

on the LS400 and SC400 I have, no matter how hard we hit the gas, the 1st gear w/OD on will never go over said 3K rpm before 2nd grear takes over! (one thing I can say is that the 400's are really fast cars!)

we just bought this ES300 about 3 weeks ago, and tran. fluid was flushed and changed about 2 weeks ago, and it was pretty bad. now I am worry it may have big time tranny problems.

looks like I got to get it checked on the double!

acually if your hitting the gas hard or flooring the car it will rev to 6500 rpm before it shifts gears two second!if i floor my car it changes somewere between 6500 and 7000 rpms.thats normal!i never even heard of a car the changes gears at 3000 rpms if you hitting the gas hard!i think your trans is normal but the white smoke is a problem that could be the head gaskets!

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White smoke can also be transmission fluid that is being burned to a leak into the manifold. This would translate to late shifts and gear slips which you seem to be experiencing. Check your trany fluid to see if it’s low if it fill it up and check it often to see if the level goes down. If it does that confirms you are burning trany fluid which will require some garage time. Unless you have skills.

I did not actually hit the gas to floor. I would say maybe halfway in short burst, driving mild up-hill and with OD on, and 1st gear registered 5000+ rpm before 2nd gear kicked in....

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the situation worsens.

now, whenever the car parks for couple hours, it spits out big puff of smoke in light-blue, and it does have 'exhaust' smell unlike much less smelly white 'steam' it used to have.

one mechanic suspects it's 'valve sten seal' inside the engine!?

any clues anyone?

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