Whether it is because it is a second-hand vehicle, because it has been in use for a long time, or because it has reliability problems, the smoke that comes out of our car is something to pay attention to. And it is that the witnesses of the instrumentation of the car are much more important than you might think. Thus, our cars generate a series of fumes of different colors that can give us a clue as to whether they are in good health or if we need to take them to the workshop urgently. Among them, the blue.
If the smoke from your car is blue, worry
It is true that not all fumes are the same and some of them may be revealing possible mechanical problems . Just as the smoke shows where the fire is, in the case of cars, the color shows what the fault is. It’s more; it can also be the case that the motor does it.
And we are used to seeing cars on the road that emit black, blue or white smoke from their exhaust pipes. Each of them is telling us that the vehicle may have a defect. And in what has to do specifically with the blue from the exhaust pipe, it is not because they have put pretty colors on the oil that we burn as decoration. Rather it is a reason to worry … a lot.
Apart from the problem that we obviously have in the engine, the fact that blue smoke comes out of the exhaust pipe is one of the main reasons why the gas check is not passed when we have to do the technical inspection at the ITV, the great feared by many drivers, especially for those vehicles that are usually more than 10 years old.
Usually occurs in older cars
As you know, the main function of a car’s exhaust pipe is to evacuate the smoke produced by the engine. Although the invisible smoke that usually comes out of a car exhaust pipe is considered normal, you have to be concerned in the event that this smoke is colored, especially when the smoke is blue, as it may be in this case.
This is why we say that if blue smoke comes out of the vehicle’s exhaust pipe, the problem is serious . In any case, it is a fault that usually occurs in older cars, more than 15 years old, that accumulate many kilometers and that have been driven at high revolutions.
The main factors that cause the appearance of blue smoke are:
- That the oil has leaked through the seals of the cylinder head valves.
- In the case of turbocharged engines, blue smoke from the car can indicate that oil has leaked into the engine through the friction bearings. This problem produces a bluish-white smoke.
- When it comes to non-turbocharged engines, blue smoke coming out of the tailpipe is an indicator that the engine is nearing the end of its useful life. The main cause is usually the wear of the valve seals in the cylinder head.
What considerations do we have?
Remember that this failure, in addition to being serious if the oil reaches the engine, can cause costly damage to other parts of the vehicle (such as the catalytic converter). It is advisable, therefore, to take care of the car and follow the recommendations so that its useful life is prolonged, delaying or avoiding the appearance of that blue smoke.
For its part, what we can highlight is that there are currently additives that can solve the problem of blue smoke many times definitively and in other cases for a good few hundred kilometers enough to be able to plan the repair that will definitively end the problem.
