This morning, i drove my car out and after about 15 mins I got into a rush hour caused by the construction ahead. I parked my car after the construction cuz i smelled something like plastic burnt with the window down. I got off the car and opened the hood; man, the engine bay smelled like a plustic bag. Then i remembered last night when I came back home, I drove on a plastic bag in the parking lot so I checked but no bag found.

Is it a burnt clutch? but I had no problem with shifting and didnt sell the burnt the second time i drove after the car was cooled down. However, when i parked my car again, it smelled again when I opened the hood (didnt smell it inside the car this time)

Help. I did search but no one really descripts what kinda smell a burning clutch is supposed to be.

 

Rev your motor to 9000 then feather the clutch very slowly until you get up to speed . Now stop and open the door and put you head under the car - that is what a burnt clutch smells like .....

 

so what do u think the smell came from my engine bay supposed to be?

 

plastic bag - it got hooked on the exhaust and burnt up - you answered your own question .

 

I had this thought the first place but the smell was not from the exhaust at all, not even from the rear half of the car.
I could smell it from the front wheels and i could mostly smell it from the engine bay. Plastic bag??? I highly doubt it unless the bag is inside the engine which is impossible.

 

actually....I think it would be possible that the bag was hooked under the engine???

 

I'm surprised you never smoked a clutch learning how to drive... In any case, the smell of burnt clutch is pretty distinctive, whereas a plastic bag smells like... well... burning plastic. And really, it doesn't take much heat to melt a plastic bag, it could have been blown just about anywhere under the car and stuck.

 

lol, i learnt driving stick when i was 12 years old but at that time, I didnt really stick with one car cuz I didnt own a car when I was 12. Thats probably the reason why I never burnt a clutch.

 

sorry guys, but the problem is still happening everyday. Lets just forget about the clutch, cuz my question was really not about only the clutch.

I just want someone who experienced this to tell me what this smell could be. I burnt a plastic bag in my garage just to smell what a burning plastic bag smells like. It smells similar but i cant say they are the same smell. what I found out is to burn a plastic bag is a pretty quick process cuz if the plastic bag got hot, it just compressed really fast, so there is no way the smell can last 2 days.should I take my car to the dealer tmr to let them check it out?????

 

the smell is from the engine bay for sure. and its somehow from the very inside of it, maybe the engine?

 

maybe something crawled somewhere and died.. and now it's getting toasty on the engine or manifold somewhere.. and you smell it because the odor is coming in through the ac vents? ya never know!

 

lol i wish! so i dont have to eat breakfast at home tmr...

anyways, I read some oily burnt smell thread and kinda got influenced. Maybe its the oil somehow leaking.....I will let them check it out tmr morning

 

you need to jack the car up. and look. you could have a plastic bag attached to an oil cooler, oil pan, radiator, up in the header area, or all of the above.

or if you just changed the oil.. well stuff spills off the oil filter.

beers

 

I can tell you that I once got a bag melted under my car (not the 8) and it smelled for a good few days thereafter. It was hard to find, too, as it just turned into a black crunchy film. You'd be surprised.

But definitely check to be sure it's not something worse.

 

Burning clutch has a distinctive smell but close enough to burning plastic that nobody is going to be able to describe it to the point where you know for sure. You just have to be familiar with it. If you've ever smoked your brakes it's that smell -- the binders in the friction lining smoking.

The plastic bag still sounds like the most likely suspect. Which, as Speedbear noted, probably doesn't resemble a plastic bag anymore.