Tailpipe black smoke

ELMORVAGZ

MEMBER
2011 TOYOTA PICKUP
2.5L
4 CYL
2WD
MANUAL
147,500 MILES

While following my pickup during trip I observed that its tailpipe is smoking when we are traveling uphill. There are five people in the truck and we were running at about seventy kph only.
What do you think is the first step to check and the next step to do if the previous is found okay?

2 Replies

MHPAUTOS

MECHANIC
31,937 POSTS

May have been lugging in a to high gear for the road speed, black smoke is over fueling, so if the driver was not lugging. Check for a blocked air filter and check for a wet spark plug that may indicate further problems with injectors or compression's.

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Wednesday, November 1st, 2017 AT 1:59 AM

KEN L

MASTER CERTIFIED MECHANIC
47,536 POSTS

There are two things that come to mind for me the first is a partially plugged catalytic converter which will low the engine vacuum causing the computer to dump more fuel or the MAF sensor is contaminated and needs to be replaced.

Here are a couple of guides which can help us get some answers for the problem:

https://www.2carpros.com/articles/how-to-test-a-catalytic-converter

and

https://www.2carpros.com/articles/how-to-replace-a-mass-air-flow-sensor-maf

and

https://www.2carpros.com/articles/engine-black-smoke

Please let us know what you find. I'm interested to see what it is.

Cheers, Ken

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Thursday, November 2nd, 2017 AT 2:13 PM