My girlfriends 95 avenger (2.0 DOHC) smokes like a volcano and uses about a quart of oil a week. I bought it for her 6 months ago and it started smoking the first week and has gotten worse ever since. I pulled the sparkplugs to see how they looked and they seem ok--light tan with no rounding of the electrodes---BUT...the spark plug threads had oil on them, I thought this was strange but didn't know about "spark plug tube seals" at the time and I just put them back in,puzzled but with no ideas. Since then I've heard about leaking spark plug tubes and wondered if that could be the problem. It doesn't seem to smoke more at start-up than after 30mins of running, it just smokes constantly whenever running. After a 5 minutedrive it smokes profusly at the first stop light we come to, (how embarassing). Also the engine gets very hot, even the hood prop rod gets too hot to touch barehanded, but the temp gage shows normal and it never overheats or needs coolant. It runs great on the highway and in town, but sometimes shudders at idle. Could a leaking valve cover gasket and/or spark plug tube seals account for this much oil consumtion? I was thinking of getting the head rebuilt to rule out valve seals but am low on funds and I wonder if it could all be massively leaking spark plug tube seals (boots were dry). I know a little about cars and realize this sounds like multiple problems, but I'm hoping I might be wrong. In short--HELP!!

 

Does there appear to be any oil leaks on the block ??? Dripping oil ??? or does it just appear to be coming from the top of the valve cover ??? If the smokes just coming from around the spark plugs then it could be valve cover gasket and spark tube seals ...

 

Could also be the valve seals themselves had this same problem on an old LUV truck.

 

if it's valve seals the smoke would be out the tailpipe ... he describes the smoke as coming from underhood

 

Opps missed that part.

 

the first thing I would do is take it to a hand car was and leave it running. then I would clean the engine compartment and engine. be carefull not to get all the wires (spark plug and computer and fuse panel) wet. you can cover a lot of that with plastic. Mainly the engine that is leaking either internally or externally. then when it starts to leek again. You can see where it is comming from. It sounds like one of the seals (front main or rear main crank shaft) or maybe even the oil pressure sending unit. Maybe the oil filter. If it is smoking under the hood as you describe and not from the tail pipe, it is probably getting on the exhaust system. It should be smelling really bad too. Good luck and let us know what you found.