Coolant spilled on my upper intake manifold. I washed it off to the best of my ability but when i started the car white smoke came from tge exhaust any suggetions as to what my next move should be?
If the white smoke started right after the spill it is probably steam, nothing to worry about. Run the car for a few minutes to drive the water off. If you were adding coolant because it is low you may have other issues. A head gasket leak could be drawing coolant in and eventually into the exhaust which could yield white smoke right out of the exhaust. Please give us more info on the car, mileage, maintenance history, recent unexplained loss of coolant etc
I agree. It’ll burn off in short order, nothing to worry about.
I think meddle means the white smoke is coming from the exhaust pipe, not from the engine compartment.
White smoke out the exhaust pipe is normal in cold weather and gradually diminishes until the engine reaches operating temp. But if this white smoke thing happened immediately after the coolant spill, and doesn’t go away when the engine is warmed up … well, you have to consider the possibility that the coolant (or the water used to wash the coolant away) was a different temperature than what it spilled on, like the coolant was cold and the engine was hot, and something important has got a thermal stress crack in it now. Hopefully that isn’t what happened, but good idea to at least consider it as a possibility.