Burning plastic smell
 

Hi All,

After a long-ish drive (3 hours or so) I noticed a burning plastic smell. It was stronger on the passenger side, and seemed to be coming from the vent or engine area. There was no smoke.

I had it up on a lift getting an alignment done this morning and poked around looking for anything suspect but didn't see the source.

Any ideas?

Could be a spark plug tube leaking and dripping an occasional drop of oil on the cat/exhaust.

I found that crap they are putting on the roads right now leaves a weird burning smell on the exhaust after going for a drive

eau de Porsche

Haaaaaaaaaa!


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My indie mechanic suggests a dye to track down the leak. Does that seem reasonable?

Too bad you can't post the smell.
A few non engine oil burning smells I can think of:

-The right side engine compartment cooling fan.
-AC compressor clutch.
-Idler pulleys/belt melt.
-Grease from a torn CV boot slung onto the exhaust shielding.

A few months ago I had a plastic bag caught on the exhaust and it made a similar smell. Mechanic is going to 'add dye' today, let me run it for ~150 miles, and then check it. We'll see what they can find.

I had a similar problem with my car. Indy and dealer could not figure it out. Finally I determined one of my coolant fans was binding causing fuse block to fry.

Well, the car doc says, we don't know. There was a tiny bit of oil around the drain plug, and a tiny bit near the oil fill neck. But that was it, and nothing to account for the smell I was getting. It has been intermittent and of course there was no smell today. They said bring it back if it gets worse.

No news is good news?