What does this look like to you? Pic inside
 

Bad injectors? Winter gas? Just plain dirty car?

Its not black smoke but black soot like substance all over the bumper. A b*tch to clean too.

If its the bad injectors that i've been fearing, how much will this hurt my checkbook?

http://www.tonysouphotography.com/ph...-mXLfd2v-M.jpg

My 350Z did something similar and it was oil control rings.

without diagnostics, it is impossible to say what's wrong- much less give you a price! ;)

You want to hook it up to a diagnostic computer and look at fuel trims (long and short term) as well as air flows, temperatures (intake, coolant, oil, etc) timing afdvance, etc.

If a sensor is bad and the car is running rich, you will see the DME trying to compensate (and failing, but not enough to trip a CEL)...this will point you to what the issue may be. A car with a sluggish VANOS; a car that is running cool and is stuck in 'open loop' control...all possible causes.

No warranty?

A

Not sure what it is because the soot I have is just liquid that falls downwards and doesn't gather all around. Regardless, use liquid clay bar to get it off - anything above the clearcoat layer rubs right off (with a flipflop-on-wet-tile sound effect showing it does get in there good). I use it all the time on my rear aero kit and it's about 5-seconds of effort and leaves no marks. May take you 30 seconds though. ;)

http://www.amazon.com/Turtle-Wax-T46...iquid+clay+bar