Pours blue smoke, wont idle, check engine light flashes!?

**1fastz71** · 10-24-2010

Hey everyone, new to the forum and looks like a great site to be involved with!

I'm hoping I can recieve a bit of insight before I have to send car to the shop!

Im very mechanically inclined but this has my fooled.

2000 Grand Prix GT 3.8. 200,000Kms.

Its my sisters car, ran great and very well maintained.

Parked it overnight, ran fine. Started it up in the morning, while letting it warm up, the oil pressure light and battery light came on on the dash.

So she shut it off, and it wouldnt start back up.

I got home from work and managed to get it started. Had to hold throttle to the floor and keep throttling it to keep it running.

Wont idle, runs very rough and shakes, and TONS of blue smoke coming out the exhaust. Check engine light starts flashing.

I checked oil level, its normal, coolant level is normal. Re-set the computer, didnt change anything.

What could have gone over night basically and that fast? I cant even drive the car?

Any opinons, thoughts would be greatly appreciated!

P.S. Is there any way I can check the check engine light without having to buy a scanner tool??

Thanks in advance!!

**Rust** · 10-24-2010

Mass Air Flow Sensor!
Happened to me. Parked it to get a coffee and it worked fine. Came out, had trouble starting and idling. Managed to drive a little bit struggling the whole way and died.
Would take a lot to get started, had to keep the throttle in quite a bit, ran extremely rough. Lots of shuddering and missing, engine codes, lots of smoke and an extremely strong smell of gas, then die again.

The readings for the sensor were WAAAAY off and would dump crazy amounts of fuel in which basically went out the tail pipe.
Pretty expensive unless you want to trust a used one. No predicting when they can go.

**machinegunsquid** · 10-24-2010

Exact same thing happened to mine, and It was the Mass Air Flow sensor also..Good place to start..

And I believe that you can unplug the MAF and start the car to see if it is infact the MAF.
Just unplug it, and start it up and see if it helps the problem, if so, then replace the MAF.

**1fastz71** · 10-25-2010

weirddd... we just had a brand new MAF sensor installed probably a month ago because of other symptoms (rough idle, hesitating, etc.). Once replaced car ran like a dream.

To update, I started the car today for the first time since I last had it running (when it was smoking and running rough), and ran like nothing ever went wrong. Fired right up, no smoke, good idle, and ran like it was new..

?