smoke comming from air vents?

[cooldude919]

Got a weird problem here. I seem to get smoke comming out of my air vents at times, mostly when car car is sitting still or has been sitting still. Im guessing possibly the heater core is the problem? I changed the vent back in forth from inside air to outside air and it didnt seem to make a difference. Also this happend with the fan being completly off, which i guess makes it easier to see the smoke, i need to do more testing to see if it comes out with the fan being on.
I also noticed some smoke outside of the car tonight in the headlight beams. I looked all under the car and i did find some oil around the oil feed line on the bottom of the turbo(return line? not sure which one this is) so im guessing that gasket is leaking, but i doubt this is the cause of the smoke in the car since this is in the front of the engine bay and i had the hood open and still noticed some smoke out of the vents.
On the colder nights i have noticed my defrost doesnt work well at all, so possibly the heater core is bad and is getting antifreeze in the air aka adding moisture making the fogging up worse? And the leaking oil line is the cause of the smoke outside the car?
Im open to any ideas. Im going to try to get the tools to do a compression test soon to make sure everything is in line with that.

No smoke comming from tail pipe at any time from what ive seen, boosted by the house the other day and gf said it looked clean, and ive noticed nothing at idle. Car seems to run fine otherwise.(no loss of power)

Thanks for any help

 

[The_EE]

Might not be a good idea to drive the car if you see smoke and cant find the cause. Your best bet, take the car to Mitsu, have them do a safety inspection ( $65 ) and find out what is going on. better then the car catching fire.

 

[Diplomat]

"...so possibly the heater core is bad and is getting antifreeze in the air aka adding moisture making the fogging up worse?"

Bingo.

These are classic symptoms of a leaking heater core. So, yes, adjusting the outside air vent lever won't make much difference. Although, adjusting the temperature setting should. A lot of folks simply bypass the heater core until they have time enough to replace the core. I would suggest you consider doing the same if you don't intend to fix the problem right away.

If you don't already have one, a factory technical manual will help you when you get ready to tear into the dash, and no, I don't mean a Haynes or Chilton's guide. You can pay the dealer to do it, but it is kinda labor intensive, so pay you will.

 

[khill8469]

what does it smell like if it is a sweet smell it is your heater core. antifreeze has a very sweet smell.