Okay, so I suppose I'll have to put the headlights on the back burner for now... So today, after driving (a little hard but nothing crazy) in 85 degree weather, about 200 miles after an oil change, I park the car, and I see smoke billowing out of my wheel well on the right side.
I'm thinking okay, since I had to park in grass, up a steep hill, one or two of my tires slipped kicking dirt up, so I figured it might be my breaks smoking. Upon getting out to investigate, the smell is obviously oil... So I pop the hood. Once I popped it, the smoke came out rather intensely...

Upon thinking of it more clearly, today, I went up and sat on steeper hills than I have since the oil change... Could it have been oil was sitting around my engine or something, then since I was on the hills, it dripped back on the cat?
I figured it would have burned off before that... Although, the possible drip location was kinda off the engine-ish if that makes sense? I'll try to get a picture tomorrow to better explain.

Thinking of it more, I remembered that I am leaking coolant... I assumed that was (as someone mentioned before) a sub-typical leak behind the engine? However, if I blew my gasket, wouldn't that also lower my coolant levels and leak oil? I don't think that is a high probability though, it hasn't really been over heating... usually up to half on the temp gauge... except the other day, it went to the first bar after half...And wouldn't the guy changing the oil notice coolant? Plus, since my timing belt snapped, I had half the engine rebuilt...so that puts about 3000 miles on it.

Any ideas on that problem?

The "bad cat?" ties in too... loosely haha. I'm getting a "service insp" code where the odometer is, and its some code saying the "cat converter is not working to peak performance". I'm pretty sure that problem was because I had the factory spark plugs in my car after 90k miles, leading to those misfire codes... but I've put some new NGK's in it so thats probably smoothed out.
If I am leaking coolant from the aforementioned spot, would that land on the cat and possibly ruin an o2 sensor? I'd rather pay $200 for a new o2 sensor or 2 than the $1500 for a new cat!

I know, a lot in one post, sorry.
But any help would be great!
Thank you.

 

how old are the O2 sensors? Thats the only measurement your ECU has of the "health" of the cats so to speak, so if they're starting to go bad it could be giving a false reading. And where are you buying parts that you're planning on spending $200 for an O2 sensor and $1500 for a catalytic converter!?

EDIT: Something else i just thought of: you said that message is appearing as a message below the odometer, but you're not getting a CEL? Depending on the mileage of your car, it could just be a mileage based message. Mine has been complaining for 2 years that i need to change the oil, even though i change it every 3000 miles, just because i don't reset the little message every time i change it. search for "reset service interval" and see what you find, that may help remove the message.

 

If you have a 1.8, a leaky valve cover gasket can oil to leak and drip onto the exhaust and will cause smoke to come from the exhaust area. Look to see if there is oil leaking there.

 

+1 on valve cover gasket. I just had the same problem. Changed the gasket in an hour let it burn off the smoke and all was well.