Hello all,
Glad to be finally registered and set up! We bought a beautiful '07 Denali a few months back, and we absolutely love the truck. Not too long ago, I began noticing a fair amount of a blue-ish gray smoke coming from the tailpipe at cold startups. The frustrating thing was it was only an intermittent thing. It was kind of line a vintage airplane that when started, would puff out a large cloud of smoke and then that was it, nothing else. I also noticed the oil level was way below the lower x on the dipstick. The engine has been running fine, no noises, no CEL, etc. I did some early research here, and it seems others have had similar issues with the 5.3 liter. It was almost due for an oil change, so I took it into the dealer to have them check it out.
Their diagnosis was a faulty PCV valve, which they replaced under the 12 mo. Certified B2B warranty. They also recommended (and I took the bait hook line & sinker) to have a throttle body injection cleaning service and some upper engine induction chemical cleaning service done while they were in there. Total bill w/ the oil change was about $240 and all is now well. I will be keeping a very close eye to see if the smoke issue comes back, as well as the oil consumption level going forward. I can get past the oil consumption if that is truly "normal" for this type of engine, but a modern well maintained engine with 60k miles should not be spewing more smoke than the local bingo hall on a Friday night!
Any thoughts or feedback? I am hoping the PCV valve was truly the culprit! Thanks for any comments or help. AI
Glad to be finally registered and set up! We bought a beautiful '07 Denali a few months back, and we absolutely love the truck. Not too long ago, I began noticing a fair amount of a blue-ish gray smoke coming from the tailpipe at cold startups. The frustrating thing was it was only an intermittent thing. It was kind of line a vintage airplane that when started, would puff out a large cloud of smoke and then that was it, nothing else. I also noticed the oil level was way below the lower x on the dipstick. The engine has been running fine, no noises, no CEL, etc. I did some early research here, and it seems others have had similar issues with the 5.3 liter. It was almost due for an oil change, so I took it into the dealer to have them check it out.
Their diagnosis was a faulty PCV valve, which they replaced under the 12 mo. Certified B2B warranty. They also recommended (and I took the bait hook line & sinker) to have a throttle body injection cleaning service and some upper engine induction chemical cleaning service done while they were in there. Total bill w/ the oil change was about $240 and all is now well. I will be keeping a very close eye to see if the smoke issue comes back, as well as the oil consumption level going forward. I can get past the oil consumption if that is truly "normal" for this type of engine, but a modern well maintained engine with 60k miles should not be spewing more smoke than the local bingo hall on a Friday night!
Any thoughts or feedback? I am hoping the PCV valve was truly the culprit! Thanks for any comments or help. AI