94 Protege slowly dying?

[ncoliva]

Hey guys. I have a 94 Mazda Protege that I'm currently having some issues with. I don't know what it is, but when I was driving the other day, white-ish smoke starting blowing out of my exhaust. Now it was THINK smoke. I pulled over and left at least 5 city blocks with low visibility because of this. Of course it pushes out more smoke when I put more pressure on the gas. what could the problem be? The car starts and everything but it's doing that. I'm at almost 284000 miles. Possible piston or head gasket problem? opinions would be appreciated. thanks in advance guys

[mannydingo]

Well, it's water or coolant/antifreeze getting into the engine. It's time to say bye bye if you don't want to put anymore money into the car. Start parting out the car. Is the hood in good shape. There's a couple of people looking for the 94 hood. What color is it(color code) and state your location.

[spiderpig]

yeah i want parts help me out sorry bout your car though it did run 4 a long time

[Wombat]

dingo and pig, you guys are pretty bold!(yupnope) That's like hanging around outside a doctor's office and asking every sick person that walks in if you can have his kidneys. I believe he was asking for some help.

Tell us more about your smoke problem. Has it ever had problems smoking before? If you take it for a drive for 20 minutes does it smoke heavy non-stop or does it just do it for a while and then clear up?

[mannydingo]

dingo and pig, you guys are pretty bold!(yupnope) That's like hanging around outside a doctor's office and asking every sick person that walks in if you can have his kidneys.


Hmmm, that's also pretty bold of you to make that statement as a brand new member after I've been one for four years now. Get yourself a little more oriented with how the forums work before you comment. I'm not upset, I see where you would think what you're thinking. At first glance it does look like we're not trying to help.

Notice I said that if he didn't want to spend any more on the car, that he could part it out. The key word is the word "if". I then made suggestions on parting out the car. See, I made the observation that the car is approaching 300,000 miles. Yes, he is only about 15,000 miles away from hitting that mark.

That, then, leaves him the option to respond on his next post that he either agrees to part out the car or state he still wants to keep it and hit the 3k mark in mileage. If he does, we can start making suggestions from there. At that mileage, you get part after part breaking down. That's not due to bad car quality, it's due to age and wear & tear.

Being new, like you, to the forums, Spiderpig may not be experienced enough to offer repair suggestions. He does, however, make an offer to buy parts. That may make ncoliva think about parting the car, after all.

If he decides he still wants to repair the car, we can start working on a diagnosis. It can be from a simple thing like a broken hose to a warped cylinder head.<!-- / message --><!-- edit note -->

[Wombat]

Well I have to apologize, I forgot that a person's true mechanical skill is determined by the number of posts he's made. I am in awe of your vastly superior post count. (bow)

Anyway, enough joking around for now, what I said in my last post was not meant to slam you or spiderpig.

It just bothers me to see the suggestion to say bye bye to the car and write it off as too costly to repair when there wasn't enough information provided to tell if it's really that bad. I'd hate to see another 1st gen go to the crusher when there's a chance that it could be an easy fix. I noticed that ncoliva hasn't been back to see any of the replies so hopefully he went to have a compression and leak down test done to get a good idea of what's happening.

[mannydingo]

Well I have to apologize, I forgot that a person's true mechanical skill is determined by the number of posts he's made.

Once again, you read into it differently than the way it was stated. Didn't I say the following in my last post?
Get yourself a little more oriented with how the forums work before you comment. Where did I imply that the number of posts makes a better mechanic? It only implies that more posts mean more understanding of how to reply in the forums. You can see my previous posts in the past so you can see I'm here to help and be helped. The mechanical skills thing, you threw in yourself. Anyway, let's let it go. If he contacts us back we will try to help him however we can. I'm not one of the mechanically sharp guys here and only help in the few problems I've had. As a matter of fact, I have a gut feeling you are one of the pros. I'm just a shady tree mechanic with minimal experience but over a lot of years.

[Matthew1785]

I got an idea, why don't both of you shut the hell up with you bickering and help the guy out and trying to diagnose his problem instead of talking about how big ur e-peens are.

good luck with getting your car fixed

[sanblaster]

lol

[mannydingo]

I got an idea, why don't both of you shut the hell up with you bickering and help the guy out and trying to diagnose his problem instead of talking about how big ur e-peens are.

good luck with getting your car fixed

I agree. I also stated that:

Anyway, let's let it go. If he contacts us back we will try to help him however we can.

[sanblaster]

I think he got mad..

[Matthew1785]

I think he got mad..

sorry, I'm an angry person lets all just stay on topic please

[mannydingo]

I think he got mad..

I didn't get mad. ................. I got mega-mad. Now everyone on this board will feel the wrath of my vengeance. Buahahahaha! (flame)
Don't you just love smileys? Well, not much smiling on that one.

[sanblaster]

Not you... the guy asking for help.

[iracemine]

LOL matthew is a meet killer and a thread killer!!


oh oh and a MPT5 killer too(usa) j/k

[Witchdoktor]

I noticed that ncoliva hasn't been back to see any of the replies so hopefully he went to have a compression and leak down test done to get a good idea of what's happening.



.

[mannydingo]

Not you... the guy asking for help.

In that case I retract my wrath. You're all safe again.

[Wombat]

In that case I retract my wrath. You're all safe again.

Well that's a relief! (boom01)
I never figured that joking around would evoke such a response. I guess if I post again I'll just stick to business.

On the bright side though, the 1st/2nd gen section of this board has been slow for sometime now but look at all the activity this silly thing has brought in one afternoon.

[ncoliva]

Sorry guys! I've been working a lot lately so I haven't had time to check. The car is running hot. I let it run idle and smoke still pours out of it. When it runs for a while the smoke is thin, but when I rev the engine the smoke gets really thick. I'm thinking this isn't a cheap fix, so I may as well part the car huh?

[Wombat]

Good to see you're back, we've been waiting for you! :)

Did the overheating issue and the smoking both start at the same time? Instead of just watching the smoke as it idles, have you taken it for a short drive to see how it acts?

[tviera]

Blown Head Gasket!!!!!!!

[tweiss3]

i would have to say that would be a blown head gasket, some time to replace is all you would need to fix it if you know what you are doing. The gaskets are pretty cheap, but if you were to take it to a shop it would be steep since it is a labor intensive job.

[Salmon_Rob]

swap the motor! blown headgasket is cheaper to fix with a new motor than do the whole gasket and rebuild.
http://www.car-part.com/cgi-bin/search.cgi?userSearch=int&userPID=1000&userLocation=All+States&userIMS=&userInterchange=CCC%3EEO&userSide=&userDate=1994&userDate2=1994&dbModel=48.16.1.1&userModel=Mazda%20Protege&dbPart=300.1&userPart=Engine&sessionID=268322816&userPreference=price&userZip=21113&userLat=39.0496&userLong=-76.7176&userUID=0&userBroker=&iKey=&userPage=6
pages of bp's for like 450/500 dollars with less than 100k on them. if you have a sohc, they are a lot cheaper. get a couple of friends together, get a cherry picker and some tools and a manual, get some beer for when you're done, and youll have it done in 2 days tops