Hello everyone, this is my first thread here and I was wondering if anyone could help me out with a bizarre situation I'm in. So I was getting out of work and turned my car on like normal, I drove home with everything being normal and okay until after halfway through my journey I noticed my turn signals started to blink really fast. This was very strange as I recently upgraded to VLAND headlights and tail lights not too long ago (roughly 2 months ago for Headlights and 4-5 months ago for Tail Lights). I pull into my garage and I park it like I normally do with nothing strange except I turn on my turn signals one by one then hop out to see that theres smoke coming out from where the tip of the headlight meets the bumper near the grille. I immediately turned the car off and popped the hood to see a small, but consistent, amount of smoke coming out from the driver's side. It smelled like burning plastic or electrical wires At first I thought my engine overheat but this wasnt possible as the temps were normal the whole ride home (15ish minutes) and the only things I've done to my car is change the oil last week, got a new battery 2 weeks ago, and replaced my digitizer on my NAV. Everything was running smoothly before this last ride home from work, no issues getting to school or back home or when going back to work. I drove conservatively to try and save gas so no WOT pulls or spirited driving as I normally do. Thin smoke was coming out from like 5 inches below the oil cap. After a few minutes I decide to try and turn the car on to no avail, the dash lights got dimmer and dimmer every time until I turned the car off from accessory mode and then tried once more but all I hear is the gas pump whirring when holding the push start button. I have no idea what could have happened and I'm desperate for a fix, I'm getting it checked out by a mechanic tomorrow morning, hopefully everything turns out ok but the car wont start and I let it be for now.

Car: IS250 AWD 2008
Maintenance: Spark plugs (month ago), oil change every 3.5k, filled up my coolant reservoir as it was below LOW a couple days ago, typically drive the car for at least 20 minutes every ride, changed the OEM battery as well (2 weeks ago maybe).

P.S. sorry for the long post but I wanted to give as much info as possible

 

Hate to be Captain Obvious but sounds like a massive short near where you saw smoke.
I’d disconnect battery before you let any more smoke out of the wires.

 

I should've thought of that sooner but I was too worried that there was a small fire somewhere. I think my car might be toast here, but I don't see any wires from where the smoke was coming from that would lead me to believe there was a short though. Maybe I'm being too optimistic but I included some pictures to see if you might know what the heck is what.

This is the general area from where I saw the smoke.

I originally thought the smoke was from these wires but it wasn't the case.

Don't mind this, my lamp was a little too close to the plastic cover here and it melted it a little but about 8 months ago.

Top down view from the front of the car. Radiator fans down below and the engine pulley things on top.

Opposite view from where pic 1 was taken, from top of engine bay looking towards the front.

 

Sounds like an electrical short.
1. Check the voltage across the battery with the car completely off.
If it’s 10 or less, stop right there and disconnect the ground cable.
Charge it back to 12 or more. Then I’d pull the fuses and relays for the lights and maybe the fans plus other large
amperage ones. Then move to number 2.

2. Push the start button twice without pressing the brake, check battery voltage now.
If it’s 2 or 3 more volts less than with it off, it’s shorted and smoke will be coming from the source. Track it down.
If the voltage is nearly the same or a volt or so less as when off, start putting fuses back in monitoring the voltage to attempt
to find short.

its possible to have a short on a circuit protected by a large fuse (30 amps or more) with a small wire leading to ground where the wire will smoke or fry before the fuse blows.

 

It was your alternator crapping out on you. Mine went up in smoke as its final hurrah as well. You're new battery could also have been affected by your bad alternator. So have to checked at a local parts store while installing a new alternator.

 

Update: Yes it was my alternator, I recently had time this morning to charge up my battery to see if my dash would come on & it did so I have the car at my mechanic who is going to install a new alternator since I’m at work right now & need the car back by tomorrow morning. Thanks for all the suggestions, my battery was at 10.4 V so that explains why I had no response at all. It seems I have fallen victim to the worst case scenario of our cars, the damn alternator :/

 

Good call Gville, should have remembered my 350 did the same thing after shutting down on the way home from FL to WI when I bought it.
it did smoke and I was afraid I blew a fuseable link to the field.
swapped it out in the parking lot of an Orilys in TN.

 

What miles were all of you at when this happened?

 

This just happened to me a couple weeks ago. Smoke coming out of the same area below the oil cap, also a noticeable whine whenever you gently tap the gas pedal, strangely there were no electrical symptoms. Hooked up a multi-meter to check the battery on engine idle at it was reading ~12.6V. Was just glad I didn't get stranded somewhere and caught it early enough.

This happened at 145K miles and is my second alternator, first was dealer swapped at 48K.

 

My original alternator had 165K when it failed on my IS350.

 

Surprisingly only 113,200ish, I thought that they would last longer but being oem & 11 years I suppose this was pretty good for our cars maybe..?

 

Also, I had my mechanic order an original Denso alternator in an effort to not have to deal with this in the future. Cost will be $350 for parts & labor. How long is my new alternator supposed to last under the Chicago weather and being a daily driver?