my engine was smoking on the way on from ohio yesterday. when my dad and i was in traffic, we could see that a lot of smoke was coming from the engine bay and i just want to know if this is normal for a new car or not.

 

of course this is not normal. however, it does not mean that this is an (internal) engine problem. my question is, why didn't you look to see what he cause of the smoke was?

 

Please tell me this first post was purely sarcasm...

 

smoke from the hood can mean a lot of things from ruptured coolant lines to overheating...

 

no, im not joking. the smoke was coming from the engine bay. when my dad open the hood and then closed it again, the smoke went away. guess, i have to bring it to the dealership. we were like 8 hours into our drive home from ohio. i guess it was overheating..

 

Was there a specific location where said "smoke" was emanating from?

 

my guess is some fluids or something got on the exhaust and may have been burning. Doubt it was overheating. Possible, yes. Likely, no.

 

Yeah, it was raining here yesterday, and when I opened the hood to show my girlfriend the engine I could hear the water running off the hood, hitting the exhaust, and evaporating...

 

first of all, you need to figure out if it was smoke or steam. from your description, it could be as simple as a plastic bag on the exhaust.

 

we could not tell, we could not get any light in the engine bay to see where the smoke was coming from. it was probably the rain, causing the smoke then. we saw the smoke when the car stopped on that one occasion. it was raining, so i guess the water founded its way into the engine bay.

 

Ahh, that sucks, and what's up with that, my 350z didn't have a light under the hood and neither does the G37. Dual pistons to open the hood and dual latches or whatever to keep it closed, but no damn light.

You hadn't gone through any puddles when you noticed the smoke right?

 

no puddles, we were on I-40 when this happened. we were stuck in traffic for like 1 and 30 minutes and again, i guess the rain found its way into the engine bay. my dad also mentioned that he smelled like a burned cooked smell.

 

Burned cooked smell, but not a coolant smell eh? That sucks, definitely get el dealershipo to check it out. Hard to guess what it is without knowing exactly where it's coming from, but hard to see I'm sure while it's raining.

 

I kinda had the same thing happen to me last week when the first hard rain came here in SoCal. I had some steam coming from the engine bay out of the front grille when I parked my car in the garage. I didn't even open the hood, I just took a quick smell and it didn't smell like anything at all so I just waited untill it stoped, which it did just after a few minutes. The car runs great so far, I've ony had it for 2 1/2 weeks, with that steam happening within the first week I had it.

 

When I first bought the car, I had the engine bay treated with that anti-rust stuff. It is a think, rubbery substance that coats the entire bay and undercarriage of the car. I think there might have been a little overspray because when the engine was really hot it would smoke a litlle bit. I think its all burned off now since it doesn't do it anymore.

Also, I find that I get quite a bit of steam coming out from the grill after washing the car. Seems pretty normal though and always stops after about 5-10 min.