is this normal? i let my roommate borrow my car and when he took off... i saw smoke.
(btw, it was not cold out).

 

also, i got about another 200 miles to go til im scheduled for my 3k oil change.

 

Was the engine warmed up when your roomate took off? Relative to the exhaust gases, the rest of the exhaust system is cold therefore you would see some vapor even if it is warm outside. Word of advice, no WOT until your car is warmed up, your car will appreciate it. If you saw blue exhaust, that is bad and worth looking in to--oil burning.

 

I was behind a fellow Maxima driver the other day when he floored it and I saw a little smoke come from his exhaust too. Probably any car is going to spit a little smoke at WOT. In my opinion WOT just can't be good for a engine so I never do it. I would like to try and get a couple hundred thousand miles out of my engine. (and it will probably have that many before its paid for at the rate I'm going!)

 

Use the power, man. That's why you bought the Max to experience the gifts the engineers at Nissan gave you There is nothing wrong with visiting redline at a regular basis with your foot firmly planted on the floor. As long as your car is fully warmed up and you don't abuse it, feel free to enjoy yourself.

 

yes, the car was warmed up. id been driving it around running errands all day. this was around 4pm when i let my roommate borrow it for a sec. and yeah, even though i said WOT, it was probably more like half throttle or 3/4 throttle. even so, this concerns me. im going to have my girlfriend drive around in an empty parking lot this afternoon and i'll investigate further.

btw, just curious, what do you all consider "warmed up" to be?

 

Roger that. WOT is not necessarily abusive. I accelerate aggressively quite often, but not ordinarily from a dead stop. I hate wheel hop, so I'll wait until I'm rolling a little before I hit it. But to buy a Maxima and not let it all hang out is criminal in my opinion. And I'm an OLD FART!

If you wanted a car to drive sedately, suds1, you'd have been better off with a Camry.

Nissan doesn't say "enjoy the ride" for nothing!

 

Driving for an hour through Death Valley in the middle of summer?

 

If you never hit WOT... Buy a Yugo or a metro with 3 cylinders...

 

ps: Why was your friend going WOT with YOUR car? If I ever let a friend borrow my car(and I wouldn't) I'd kill em if I found out they were flooring it.

Mike S.

 

I use to send my friend out in my Mustang , to setup street races , while I worked, then when I got out ... IT was ON ! This was when I was 17...Long time ago...

 

At WOT the ECU is probably going "full rich" on the air/fuel mixture and this is the reason for the smoke.

My 90 Camry 5spd did this.
My dad's 98 Camry 4-cyl auto does this.
My Accord V6 did this.
My 99 Max 5spd does this.
Every car in front of me that's floored it has done this.

Normally the A/F is leaner for better fuel economy at light throttle, but at full throttle it probably sends it rich to prevent burning up the engine since running lean at full throttle is really really bad. Leaner A/F ratio means high combustion temps and EGT, burnt pistons, ruined engine, nuff said. Guys that have boost know all about this and how important it is.

So I think it's safe to say that a little "black / grey" smoke at WOT is normal for most cars. Now if it's blue, that's bad. And if it's white, that's bad too. And as previously mentioned, WOT while the engine is still cold is bad too. I consider "warmed up" when the temp guage is at its normal operating position. Always take it easy before then.

 

Thats funny, my wife just got a Camry. Performance is no where near the same as the Max even though it has the exact same size engine. But I will say that it is a more solid car and she will probably have less "quality" defects with it than I have had with my car. Oh well, you can't have you cake and eat it too.