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[celicaboston1983]

When I start my car a puff of smoke comes out. AFter that the car is normal no smoke what so ever. I asked around and some people say is bad valve stem seals? can any one confirm that or know of any other problem it could be. And also if it is the seals how much would I expect to pay for a shop to fix it for me. thanks


-Tony

[CoolDoctorJ]

Ok, so I just got back from the dealer, and they basically confirmed what everyone here says: It's the valve seals. Don't worry about it, it's a common quirk and you probably aren't burning a lot of oil. It turns out that even a tiny drop of oil that may have leaked in to a cylinder before startup can make a pretty big cloud of smoke, so we're probably not burning a noticeable amount between oil changes.

The maintenance guy I talked to knew what I was talking about right away, and was very familiar with the problem. He said that if he went out and started one of the used Camrys on the lot they would usually do the same thing. He also said he used to have an older Celica... '86 I think he said... that did the same thing and aside from the superficial puff of smoke it didn't give him any trouble.

Their advice to me: Keep an eye on it, but don't worry about it. It would be an outrageous amount of labor to have the valve seals replaced. It happens to almost everyone with a 5s-fe engine, it doesn't burn enough oil to worry about, and it doesn't affect how the car runs.

Hope that helped.