Another LIM or Head Gasket thread

**RYGP** · 05-06-2013

Hey guys... I'm a second time GP owner and I've come here every time I have an issue. You guys seems to know a hell of a lot more than most of the shops I've brought my cars into.

With that said, I need some advice.

About 3 weeks ago I traded in my 99 GT that got me to 235k for a 2004 GT2 (3.8L V6 L26) with 90k. I live in North Dakota, and everything seemed to be great until the weather started to get warmer this week (hit about 80 today). I noticed what I thought was white smoke coming from the tailpipe after I started the car in the morning. Until today, it's been in the 30's when I've started my car, so I figured it was normal condensation. Well today it was like 55-60 outside when I started my car and noticed the same thing. Later on the car was running hot driving in stop and go conditions around town (creeping up, didn't hit the red but got too close for comfort).

I took it in to my mechanic and he said "you're not gonna like this, but I'm 90% sure you've got an issue with your head gasket". He couldn't see any white smoke at the time so he did some tests (something about hydrocarbons and something about bubbles in the coolant). When he came back, he said he was leaning towards not the head gasket, but what he found could be consistent with the beginning of head gasket failure. He did however say I had a small LIM gasket leak which could also be the problem, so he couldn't be 100% sure.

I read around on here and checked all the obvious stuff. Oil level is good and looks clean, deathcool looks clean. Not using massive amounts of coolant (coolant was sitting right at the full cold line after sitting for a few hours). Pulled a spark plug and didn't find any coolant. I'm a lot less worried about a head gasket failure since it doesn't have any of the big signs, but I don't know what to think of the white looking smoke part. It also doesn't seem to last too long after the engine warms up.

What do you guys think? Does this sound consistent with LIM gasket leak? Could that cause the whitish smoke too?

**Slick2500** · 05-06-2013

Just fyi 9 times out of 10 when a mechanic says head gasket he is wrong with the 3800, they don't blow head gaskets that often. My money is on the lims.

**BillBoost37** · 05-07-2013

Based on your description of 50ish degrees, I'd still be thinking it's condensation. Think about outside temp vs exhaust temps. However, you really want to do something, so do lims only.

**RYGP** · 05-07-2013

Watched it a little closer this morning... it's definitely steam. The tailpipe was wet after letting it run for a minute. Disappeared after warming up to op temp though, and hasn't come back.