andWhere and orWhere will add a specified condition to the already existing one. And you should note that AND and OR will be applied between the existing condition as a whole and a newly added one.
So, in your case, the condition will be constructed like the following:
1) veiculo.status != 4
2) (veiculo.status != 4) AND place like $q
3) ((veiculo.status != 4) AND place like $q) OR descricao like $q
The condition finally you get is not what you want, is it?