Hi Everyone! I’ve had this problem for about 2 months now, where, when I turn off the engine, smoke comes up from the cracks around the hood. This is only happening about once a week, and it is very brief. It is brief enough, that when it first happened, I didn’t think that it was from my car (I thought that maybe it was heat radiating off the hood). The second time I realized that it was mine, and the third time, I jumped out of the car, opened the hood to see where it was coming from, and it had already dissipated. My mechanic checked the belts, and looked for leaks and couldn’t find anything wrong. Any ideas?
A few possibilities come to mind. You could have a slight coolant leak, so slight that it would not be apparent without some time being put into pressure testing the cooling system. Your mechanic should be able to do this, if he didn’t already do it the last time you were there. You could also have a valve cover gasket leak, which could create some smoke and be difficult to find if it’s on the back bank of cylinders (your Diamante does have a V6, right? I think they all did). Another possibility, since it has only happened three times in two months, is that you could be hitting some water near the end of your trip, right before you park. Water kicked up onto the engine and exhaust can create enough steam to make it look like smoke from under the hood.
Thanks for the info. I can tell you that the third possibility is out because it has been quite dry here recently and it has happened on those dry days. The other two are possible; and yes it’s a V6. I did have an incident recently where I thought I was smelling coolant, but it didn’t have the smoke problem later, so I will check the level over the next couple of weeks and see what happens.
Open the hood first and have somebody else shut it off.
Could be an oil leak from the rear valve cover.
I’d love it to be that easy…it’s only happening about once a week. So, having someone stand there while I shut it off 50 or 60 times is not that practical.