2002 Toyota Camry I4 engine overheating problem
 

Hi Guys,

I am helping my friend fixing her camry. She told me that she was driving it last August (6 months ago) and noticed smoke coming out of the tailpipe. She also saw that the temperature gauge going high. So she pulled over and had the car towed back to her house. She then left it there for the last six months. She was told that her water pump was bad and it needed to be replaced.

Since she heard me talking about fixing my own car, she asked for my help. I've done water pump replacement on my Oldsmobile Intrigue and told her that I could help her with replacing the water pump. I started to work on it on the last weekend. Took me two days (most of the time was spent on the road to Harbor Freight and auto parts stores) to get the water pump done. I put the old coolant in the radiator. Then she started the car. But the temperature gauge still went high after a little while. So this weekend I replaced her thermostat. But it seems that the car is still behaving the same way in that it overheats after a while of driving. I did check the radiator and the fan was running. So what else could be wrong? The head gasket? She told me for sure that the overheating 6 months ago was not too bad in that she did discover the smoke very quickly and stopped the car.

Can some pros here give me some hints? I would really appreciate any advice.

Thanks.
B

Smoke coming out of the tail pipe is not a good sign. Did she mention if the smoke was white or gray? White would mean coolant and that would mean head gasket. Heat like that can also warp the head. I would do a compression test on the car and then go from there.

Thanks for the response. After I replaced the water pump and the thermostat, when the engine was running, there was not much smoke coming out of the tailpipe (very little I think, although I did not pay too much attention to it). If it was a blown head gasket, wouldn't the smoke be coming out even after I replaced the above 2 parts?

Yes, there would still be some smoke. Did you notice if it was white smoke? If it was gray smoke then maybe (and this is a big maybe) the engine just got really hot and started to cook the oil and some got burnt. I've never heard of that though. You might have to let the engine run a bit to warm up. Replacing the water pump and t-stat have in no way any possible relation to the smoke out the pipe. Don't run it so it is overheating though! Do the compression test, rule the head gasket out. Hopefully the head is not cracked either. If you don't have a compression tester you can probably rent one from a place like autozone. They seem to rent everything.