Whitish Smoke, Harsh Idle

I have a 99 Tacoma 3.4L with about 170K miles.

One day I was driving and it was -10 degrees outside, so I naturally had the heat on full blast. Then I noticed the vents started blowing cold instead of hot air and my engine was hotter than I had ever seen it before (nearing the top of the gauge). I shut the engine off and figured my coolant was low. I knew the coolant had a small leak and it was going to cost too much to fix it. I had to put about 1 gallon of coolant in the radiator to fill it up.

Since then it has started to act up. Whenever it is started from being cold, the idle is really rough and the truck shakes a bit until it is warmed up. Also, while the engine is cold the exhaust is white like water vapor until its warmed up, but it emits a lot more white exhaust than normal.

Any ideas what this could be. I haven't taken it in to get looked at because I am low on cash. The truck doesn't seem to be low on power at all.

 

Bump

 

No Check engine light unfortunately, otherwise I would have just used a code scanner

 

What should I be looking for on spark plugs and vacuum lines?

 

loose lines or leaks and bad spark plugs or loose ones.

 

Was this a joke? What would that do?

Spark plugs all look okay.

 

^^^^
What he said. Keep checking the coolant level. I'll bet it is slowly going down. Consistent white vapor out the exhaust usually indicates coolant being drawn through the engine - normally from a head gasket leak.

 

dang sorry man hopefuly its not as serious as a bad head gasket. good luck

 

it also sounds like it could be an burnt valve.....

 

Dealership said it is a head gasket leak. Is this very common in the 3.4L motor?

Also, I was quoted $2400 for the fix, does that sound reasonable?

 

same thing happened to a friend of mine, turned out being a head gasket unfortunately

 

Or do it yourself for the price of a new HG gasket.

 

If I remeber correctly only the 95.5-late 97 3.4l had bad headgaskets, but they were all fixed by 98.