White snow is black while idleing

[PrimerPLus]

Well it has snowed a ton here in Alaska and while I was cleaning off the car, I let it warm up. I was shoveling the snow and when I got to the exhaust pipe I noticed the snow was black. I smelt my exhaust coming out, which is clear, and it did not smell of gas. So I am curious why it is black. Is this normal or is it suggesting something?

Also I believe my heater core is damaged because the inside of the car does not get warm. I have replaced all radiator hoses, thermostat, and radiator. The only thing I can assume it is, is the heater core. I will be replacing this within the week.

 

[FIBA M - EC17PSE]

it can be bits of oil leaking, when my valve stem seals were leaking i did have smoke but when it was behaving and did not smoke i revved it and i had small sputters of oil on the cloth, it could be a turbo seal leaking or similar after the chambers so its not burning anything and no smoke to use as a guess, i could be wrong but its a start

 

[PrimerPLus]

Hey thanks for the tip. I will look into that.

 

[WES_393]

If there's no obvious smoke from burning oil, it's just carbon from the combustion. When the car is cold more moisture will condense in the exhaust pipe which cleans the carbon out. All my garage doors/floors have big black marks from starting cars in the cold. Even my 5k mile engine (which burns zero oil) does it. Well, did until I switched to E85.

 

[PrimerPLus]

Good to know. Thanks man.

 

[foxracing4500]

do you have a catalytic converter?

 

[duckie1098]

If there's no obvious smoke from burning oil, it's just carbon from the combustion. When the car is cold more moisture will condense in the exhaust pipe which cleans the carbon out. All my garage doors/floors have big black marks from starting cars in the cold. Even my 5k mile engine (which burns zero oil) does it. Well, did until I switched to E85.

Mine did the same.

However if your really worried do a leak down and compression test and see if everything is okay.

 

[AK Maniak]

Mine did the same thing this morning after I let it run for a few min but then again you and I both know that my car has some issues

 

[bewstin]

Like Wes said, Carbon builds up in your exhaust over time. And when the car is running it builds up moisture in the exhaust. It will drip down the exhaust and wash out the carbon, making black watery stuff. Completely normal no worries.

 

[gusu]

If you have carbon in your exhaust and use seafoam in one of the vac lines on your TB it will literally blow it out and all over the ground.

A rag over the exhaust is one of the better ways of checking for oil with out actually taking the exhaust off.

 

[PrimerPLus]

Well I know I have some issues as far as leak down goes I have about 30% loss according to the tester but compression is good 175-174-174-175 so idk
But I am about to do some maintenance on Monday. So I will be checking over a lot of things.

PS lance, yiur car has some issues but I'm sure we can get her figured out.

 

[AK Maniak]

Well I know I have some issues as far as leak down goes I have about 30% loss according to the tester but compression is good 175-174-174-175 so idk
But I am about to do some maintenance on Monday. So I will be checking over a lot of things.

PS lance, yiur car has some issues but I'm sure we can get her figured out.

Ya I haven't messed with it much but I went out and did a few pulls after messing with link a bit and it drove a lot better. Boost spiked pretty damn high which made me call it quits but even at 28psi I didn't get any knock surprisingly. I'm guessing it was because it was about -20 degrees out .