burning rubber smell...from the engine
 

okay! so, I hope i'm not being too overly cautious about this, but since last night I noticed a really strong burning rubber smell from the front end of the car. Well, it first appeared when I was driving up hill...I still kind of suck at driving stick, so I think I might've over-revved and my foot got stuck some where so the gas was on and the clutch was on for like 3-5 seconds and it was just stupid... so, then I smelled it inside the car...later on, after starting it again, i turned on the heater and it smelled really bad inside the car. Now that smell is gone, but the front end of the car still smells horrible.

I started it up again this morning. It sat fine when it was idling...10-15 minutes in, i could smell the smell faintly, but after going around the block for about 15 minutes, the smell came back full-force. I have absolutely no idea what this could be, but is it safe to drive?

are you sure its rubber? maybe you burnt the sh*t outta your clutch

this is a tough one.
First, a few questions: what year is the car? how many miles? Did you service it recently or was anything changed on it?

burning rubber smell should only come from the tires so maybe it's a smiliar smell but from somewhere else.
If the smell is coming into the cabin, it could be from your catalytic converter going bad.
You sure you didn't spill oil somewhere or there's a small coolant leak?

There's another question: is your car leaking anything at all?

umm the car is an '04 with 42000 miles on it.
there's no leaking at all right now and I'm sure I didn't spill anything
I don't think it's the tires, because I'm sure I didn't burnout or anything and also the smell comes back after about 10 minutes of the engine idling

oh and also...do you guys think it'd be safe to drive around 24 miles?

24miles what? in first gear? around the world?

LOL....like 24 miles for a round trip from irvine to cdm beach and back with normal gearing =/

I think you prolly burnt out your clutch a lil

That's just you burning your clutch. I would try not to do it again :)

What he said :lol:

should be fine to drive.
I'm leaning towards clutch. The smell is returning because you're continuing to give the car too much gas while the clutch pedal is still depressed.
Dont' worry, it happens to everyone when theyr'e first learning to drive an M/T.

Just work on your shifting and you should be fine.

24miles is fine...just DONT ride the clutch, just push it in when you shift in and outta gears...no need to hold it in...

make sure you rest your foot on the 'rest' pedal (far left) and not touching the clutch unless you are shifting.

You might caught a plastic bag somewhere ...

but most likely is your clutch

I tried both before. so. yeah, I know ...

My money is something plastic sticking to the cat. If the clutch was burned out, you would not be driving??? Not to mention, smell is only coming back after 10mins if I read this right? That's enough time for the cat to heat all the way back up and start cooking.

Only had my 8 since Feb, already happened to me twice. What is it w/ our cats anyways, it's like they are plastic road debris magnets or something??? Never had anything melt/stick to a cat on any car I owned before. Picked up car Monday night after getting horn worked on, smelled burning plastic when I got home and got out of the car. Got flashlight, sure enough, damn plastic bags!

sounds like clutch, i'm not embarrassed to say I have encountered the same smell :)

If its from the front of the car it could be a melted plastic bag on the oil coolers. Check them.

i dunno burnt clutch to me smells like burnt clutch, bag smells like bag. As for the OP stating smelling like rubber, i guess id associate a clutch smell with rubber...but a clutch smell is very distinct when you smell it it will stand out from other smells you've had before honestly, it normally will give me a migraine in short time which forced me to learn clutch pretty quick.

i dont think id describe a clutch smelling like a bag but i guess. It's weird that it started smelling while going uphill, that would be when the clutch would be more likely to slip if it was weak. But then you say if you just idle for 10 minutes it returns...that is more the sign of a bag unless the clutch is pretty weak, like weak enough to not be drivable. "quite a conundrum" seems fitting.

kevin.

Check your coolant level ......... coolant smells sort of rubbery when it's burning.

hahah alright thanks guys...i think it was the clutch
but...on another note, when I was driving home it started to become REALLY hard to turn left, when I got home, it was hard to turn both left AND right...and yeah, the power steering light was on :(

probably an EPS ecu failure code, but could be a number of things. pull the codes asap.

kevin.

Sounds like an issue you should get checked out ASAP. Had similar problems about 2 years ago.

First, a "funny smell"...turned out to be coolant overflowing. Topped it off and thought little of it. :icon_no2:

Power steering kept going out (didnt realize the overflow was shorting out the PS connector in the front of the engine bay). Soldered the connections together and everything was fine (so I thought). :icon_no2:

Weather started warming up and I started noticing the engine temp rising. Low coolant levels. So I would top off every so often. Got tired of doing so and took it to the dealership...needed coils, wires, waterpump, hoses, etc. Replaced all plus the thermostat and radiator on my own. Everything seemed to be fine. :uhh: :icon_no2:

(Note on the water pump, it was the stock pump that should have had 4 fins. When I took it out, there was only one fin that was still attached to the pump and it was ready to snap off...I couldn't find the other blades, but there was a TON of gritty dark orange residue all over the housing which I cleaned out. After replacing the radiator, I found not only more orange residue, but also a few peices of metal...what was left of the missing fins of the water pump...the story continues though).

After replacing almost every coolant related issue, the moment of catastrophe came when my heater core busted about 60 miles from my house, but a block away from my parents home on a Sunday night w/ my fiance in the car. Coolant leaked all in the passenger footwell. In a bind and a rush, I bypassed the heater core. Topped off with distilled water/coolant and went about my business.

All this time, I was battling an untraceable loss of coolant and boiling over issues. After the heater core bypass, a month passed and the engine said "I'm out". Warranty claim was denied, because of the heater core bypass and I was left to shoulder all the cost for engine replacement :pokeowned (props to Mazmart and JPR!!!). :biggthump

My theory on my engine failure orginates to the failed waterpump imploding on itself and lodging bits and pieces of itself in various coolant passages possibly blocking off something which would lead to overheating, boiling over and eventually engine failure. Had I gotten the waterpump replacement done at the dealer, I might have avoided most of this trouble...or not.:dunno:


Long story short...take your car into the dealer for a water pump replacement and have your coolant flushed as well. While you're at it, get the Mazmart WP installed also. :Peace:

Yepper, I agree. Peoples description of smeel is like beauty in the eye of the beholder, plus he said it smelled at idle so an easy check on the oil cooler is worth it.

yea thats why "smell diagnostics" are probably the hardest. I have a friend who swears he can guess AFR relatively close to actual AFR based on exhaust smell. So far he's been within .6 everytime, but i think its simply cause he knows roughly what i tune different cars/setups AFRs to :)

kevin.

How many miles was on your car when this happened and was it original factory coolant or what?