What are the symptoms of a Bad or Failing Exhaust manifold Gasket?
Before proceeding further, let’s understand the working of the Exhaust manifold Gasket. The exhaust manifold is the metal part in the engine of your vehicle that is responsible for collecting exhaust gasses and transferring them to the exhaust for expelling them from the exhaust pipe at the tail of your vehicle. The manifold is connected to the engine cylinder heads and sealed with the exhaust manifold gasket. The gasket is used as a seal in order to prevent any excess gas from escaping the pipes and entering again in the mixture of fuel and air that have not been combusted yet. It is usually a multi-layered gasket that contains metal and other materials that are designed to provide the best seal possible. This gasket also seals the passages together to make sure that the gasses are exhausting through the exhaust pipe of your vehicle.
Another advantage of the exhaust manifold gasket is that it helps the engine to breathe. For the proper functioning of your engine, it needs to perform a constant process of inhaling and exhaling air & gas. It can also improve the mileage of the vehicle by circulating a clean mixture of fuel and air continuously, by expelling the used air & gas mixture out of the engine of your vehicle.
Signs of a Bad or Failing Exhaust Manifold Gasket?
Excess Noise from the Engine
Whenever the exhaust manifold gasket fails, the engine makes excessive noise like tapping or hissing due to the leakage in the gasket. You can easily notice this different noise at the time of cold start or accelerating the vehicle. Thus, the excessively noisy engine could be an alert for the bad or failing exhaust manifold gasket.
Low Fuel Efficiency
If you are experiencing low fuel efficiency, decrease in power, acceleration, this could be a sign of a bad or failing exhaust manifold gasket. Because due to the leakage in the exhaust manifold gasket & cylinder head gasket, the engine will not perform like before, and significantly lose out the power, acceleration, and fuel efficiency, of course.
However, the signs noted above may come gradually, so it may be possible that you fail to notice it at the initial stage of the Exhaust Manifold Bolt and gasket failure.
Burning smell from the Engine
If you notice a burning smell from the engine’s bay then it may be another sign of a Bad or failed exhaust manifold gasket. It occurs due to the fact that the exhaust manifold carries gas from the engine to the exhaust pipe, and while carrying the gas all the way from the engine to the exhaust pipe, it passes through several parts. So if the gasket leak occurs near any part of the engine that is made of plastic or contains wiring, then those parts will begin to melt and emit a burning smell.
If those parts, through which the gas is carried out, are not made to be exposed to high temperature, then a leak in the exhaust manifold gasket will burn right through them with the emission of a strong burning smell. It is also to be noted that the burning smell is harmful and sometimes it becomes more dangerous after accompanying other smokes emitting from the engine.
