So in the past month, there has been an occasional rattle when starting my car up. However, the car has driven fine and the noise could only be heard in the first few seconds of starting it. So I figured it was fine.

It has sat in the garage for the past few days due to poor weather (rain / cold). However, today I decided to use it. When I started it this morning, it made an awful noise (not sure how to describe it) then a ton of white smoke came out of the exhaust. After a little, the magnitude of smoke dissipated, but there was still white-ish smoke pouring out. I drove into work and the only thing I could notice is a slight rattle with anything over 4000RPM (seemed to be coming from somewhere on the drivers side). Once at work, I looked at the exhaust and the smoke was gone.

Now I'm worried about the combination of noise on start-ups added with the smoke. While I frequently get smoke from the exhaust (condensation), I've never seen this much smoke before in the morning.

I have a brief clip of when the smoke started to dissipate.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wtye4yz-lCk
I'll try to get a video this evening of the start-up noise / idle sound for troubleshooting.

Any thoughts?

Should I get a compression test / leak down test?

 

Has the car been losing radiator fluid?

 

Not that I've noticed. I will be checking where the coolant level is at lunch and reply here with the results.

 

I'm thinking possible head gasket issues.

 

What does it smell like? If you were burning coolant it would smell almost sweet.

 

Just checked the fluids.

Oil: filled to the line and light brown
Coolant: Radiator filled to the top and reservoir tank filled to the max line

Any other thoughts?

 

Oil light brown like almost chocolate milk or light brown and transparent? also, have you noted any oil in your coolant tank or reservoir?

 

Below are an assortment of pictures..

Oil color (daytime)


Oil level


Oil color / coolant color


Also, does anyone know what this oil could be from? The area between the two bolts (circle-ish area) was like that when I purchased the car. The seller informed me that Honda looked at it and stated it was fine (don't remember all the details). However, whats more alarming is the wetness in the bottom left area. I'm unsure if that was like that.


Also here is another youtube of the engine after the drive home. Also sounds like I need to replace the TCT

 

Thoughts?

 

How many miles on your car, and when was the last time you had a valve adjustment?

Almost seems like you may have a similar thing going on as my car, possibly leaking seals or valves out of spec. Not entirely sure though.

Clean up that mess on the front of the engine with some simple green and a rag and see if it gets dirty again. If so then you probably have a head gasket leak, although I'm not seeing any chocolatey color in your coolant or oil.