I wrote 2 days ago about my Ford Escort that was not running right and blowing gray/white smoke on starting up. I want to thank you for your excellent answers. I wanted to thank each of you personally but dont know how to get back to an answerer here on answers? (Do you know how?) The general feeling was that it might be head gasket issues and also some other good feedback that made sense.... well, you'll never guess what I found out today. (And yes this does lead to another question).. About 10 days ago I stopped for gas at a station I usually dont use. I asked the man to check my oil. He did and said my oil was very dirty and low. He suggested I have the oil changed right then and there.. I agreed. After he changed the oil he got chatty with me. He said he noticed my car was old with hign miles. He made me take a card with a phone number of his friend who sells used cars as he felt I would be needing another car soon. Well, since then my car was running terrible.as I described on here. Blowing lots of whitish gray smoke on starting in the am (it would go away), I smelled a burning odor at first upon starting, and when I accellerated especially going up even a small hill, I would hear a chatter from under the hood. (would stop when I stopped feeding it the gas). Today I lifted the hood and noticed my dipstick was gone. I went back to the garage that changed my cars oil.. "O we dont have it," said the same man. So I went to the local junk yard looking for a Ford dip stick which they had. While there, the junk yard man checked my oil.. He said it was much too full and I had to do something to get the extra oil out quick. As it was 5pm and they were closing he couldnt help me right then...Our local WAL MART obout 5 miles away has a garage open till 7 PM . I had gone there for tires before and found their prices reasonable and courteous service, plus u can sit in Subway or shop while u wait. The technician was shocked. He said my poor car was DROWNING in oil, It had spewed out, and after the job was done he said it had 4 QUARTS TOO MUCH OIL. So I figure the ist guy with the friend who sells cars had to have done this. NOW TO MY NEXT QUESTION to you good smart car people.. btw, my car seems to be running fine now.. go figure. Do you think this craziness could have permanently damaged my engine? Is there anything I should re check ? The wal mart techs were great but they are not mechanics , they just do tires, oil changes, batteries and rotation of tires... so again I ask my YAHOO Car friends for your opinion on this... Thanks , and bless you for your help... Val from Ma. USA