Blue/grayish smoke from the exhaust and smells of burning oil

KAITLYNEPEDEN

MEMBER
2006 MAZDA 3
2.3L
4 CYL
2WD
MANUAL
126,000 MILES

Just bought the car today. When it starts up and idles, everything is good. It idles fine, no weird noises, ect. However, when any sort of gas is applied a ton of grayish/blue smoke billows from the exhaust and smells of burning oil. We're trying to figure out what the cause of it might be. It drives perfectly fine, and runs perfectly fine, but the car just smokes; and the engine light popped on after driving it for about an hour.

1 Reply

KASEKENNY

MECHANIC
18,907 POSTS

Hi,

First we need to check the engine light and see what code is there. If I had to guess then it was an o2 sensor issue because with all the oil going through the exhaust, it causes them to fail.

As for all the smoke, that is normally caused by one of two main reasons. First are valve seals/guides are allowing oil to leak into the cylinder. The next are piston rings have failed and allowing oil up into the combustion chamber.

If there is this much smoke you will want to keep an eye on the oil level until you get it fixed. The last thing you want is to run it out of oil and then you will surely need an engine.

Here is a guide that will take you through more detail. Let me know what you think and we can go from there. Thanks

https://www.2carpros.com/articles/blue-smoke-from-engines-exhaust