I started another thread yesterday regarding a surging idle, but the ride home ended poorly!
2007 2.7 Cayman, 92k miles.
I noticed a little more startup smoke than normal yesterday morning, but nothing I considered alarming. My car would go several weeks without smoke, and then a week or so with... 6 years of it.
Couldn't see any codes on Durametric. Oil level full.
I started it up after work, and there larger cloud of smoke than the morning, but not too much more. The smoke did seem to last a little longer, and I attributed to perhaps the vacuum issue...
Started driving home on the George Bush, and I see smoke from the back (same color as the random startup smoke) during traffic start/go, upon coasting and starting to accelerate. The engine sounds fine and appears to be OK. Wonder if it's a concern enough to be able to make it home, and then it starts getting REALLY bad quickly, smoking up all lanes.....I pull off at the next exit. I hear what sounds like a couple thumps from the engine bay as I'm slowly accelerating to make the parking lot, but they're not too loud. While crossing a few lanes and trying to pull into a parking lot, the engine dies, I push in the clutch and coast to a stop.
I let it sit for a couple minutes, try to see if it will turn over, and it moves the engine barely and that's it. Coolant system still has plenty of pressure, oil gauge is below empty. No CEL, no lights at all... Exhaust is all black and oily. Some guy that was behind me in a Lexus GS gave me the bird as I was moving over to get off the highway. Yeah buddy, I spewed oil just for you!
I towed it to a local shop - they think it's the AOS, and maybe seized due to oil in the cylinder. They don't think it's catastrophic, but they have seen one that was and bent the rods...
I know one guy posted on here about a locked engine due to AOS, that was fine once they changed plugs, but any thoughts? there were no leaks under the engine after it died. I'm just nervous about the couple thumps I heard. Not really looking forward to a new engine.
ouch, that sucks.... here's hoping for the best....
UPDATE:
The pulled the exhaust and plugs off, and the engine turns by hand. They cleaned the whole mess, installed the new AOS and plugs, new oil, filter. Compression is fine. They said it's running well, just a tiny bit of smoke upon throttle blips. Not the cheapest service, but certainly better than an engine rebuild!
Probably could have bypassed the deep cleaning to save a couple hundred, but I'm looking forward to it coming back to me better than I left it!
Man - the way that engine appeared locked was freaky!
Congrats on not buying a pricey engine! I'm getting that new compressible oil for my next oil change.
Really glad to hear that it worked out.
So...
I've done most of the maintenance myself on the Cayman to date, so I know anything from a shop is going to seem expensive.
Does $1,700 for a new AOS installed, new plugs installed, new oil filter, oil, and removal of exhaust to clean the excess oil sound about right?
They called me about 7 hours after starting to indicate it was good to go...
I don't mind paying for work, but this seems a bit high based on gut feel. What do you think? Grateful to have the car working again for sure!
From my experience, yes that sounds about right.
Sounds about right. Actually sounds cheap if they had to take all the intake parts out and clean them also. There's someone on another forum who had an AOS failure and decent amount of oil ingestion. His bill? Around $5,600 from a dealer..... now that's crazy and I would've gone elsewhere for sure.
If I had to get something similar done around here (Philadelphia suburbs), I know it would've been more than $1,700. Indies are expensive around here...
Got the car back yesterday afternoon, still smells a bit of oil, but seems to be running back to normal. Total bill ended up at $1,400 - This included an oil change, spark plug change, AOS change, and exhaust removal/cleanup. I'll admit I'm skeptic of whether the exhaust was truly removed, as other places I called didn't indicate it's a normal part of the process. Either way, it's back and seems to be running as before.
For reference, I called a few places dealers and independents, and the quotes received were $1,100 - $1,400.
What was also interesting is the tech said there were still about 6 quarts of oil in the engine. Amazing how much smoke just a little oil makes through the exhaust!
