My car had the smell of antifreeze coming from the vents, but it goes away when I use the "recirculating" button. Do u think it's the heater core? I hope not though. Also how much is the coolant suppose to be filled up too? Mine filled up a lot more then half the reservoir.
View 2 RepliesI have an 02 passat with about 85K and the other day my windows would not clear up and a faint smell of antifreeze. also when temp control is in cool and you move the temp control to warm steam comes out of vents. I need to know if i could change this myself and if any procedure on how to do it.
View 3 RepliesI have a 08 f-150 with a 5.4. Started smelling anti-freeze in the cab, with that classic windshield haze of a leaking heater core. I don't have anything on the floor, nor is the engine heating up. Temp gauge is where it always is. This doesn't smell all the time.I just drove 4 1/2 hrs. with no problems. Other than the heater core ?
View 2 RepliesMy 2010 Dodge Caliber has been leaking anti-freeze very slowly. I notice it when I start the car up and for the first minute I can actually smell the antifreeze coming through the vents when I have the air on. If I park the car and go in to the grocery store for a few minutes and start it up again the smell doesn't re-occur. I imagine I have a leak somewhere that is dripping onto the engine and when the car starts up from cold it burns it which is sending that smell through my vents.
I was told a while ago it could be the heater core, however I would assume that if it was the heater core I would have had a fog up on my window or a constant smell, not one that dissipates after a minute.
I had this problem last year except I was losing a lot of antifreeze (about a whole reservoir in 3 - 4 days. The problem was found to be a broken clamp on one of the hoses. This time however I cannot find any broken clamps or a source of the leak for that matter. I did notice that when I shut the car off the one time, and checked under the hood of the car I seen one air bubble spring up from the reservoir tank. I cannot see any signs of a leak from under the hood. However under the car I can see it is dripping from the frame, but not where it is coming from.
I have a 89 ford mustang with 4 cylinder. After being stored for the winter I noticed anti-freeze leaking from drain tube below heater core (small amount). I am not looking forward to replacing the heater core in this car! Any reason this happened after the car sitting in storage all winter??? or just a coincidence??
View 7 RepliesThe subjects say's it all, is there a DIY for bypassing the heater core? I already search i couldn't find it...
View 3 RepliesNoticed a deodorized smell coming from dash vents when heater put on? After my 30k service I noticed the smell of deodorizer.
View 6 Replies2003 Honda Odyssey 150K+ miles... My wife called today and said she was smelling raw gas coming from the heater vents on the first cold day this year. I thought we had this issue last year but not 100%. What it could be or how to fix it?
View 8 RepliesI have an extreme burning smell coming from my heater whenever it is on, curious I put the fan on cold and it still has the burning smell. I pulled over and got out of the car he popped the hood and I don't smell anything underneath the hood. I've been leaving it off because I don't want anything blowup on me... It is a 98 chrysler sebring convertible, and the low and medium don't work on it, it only turns on on high....
View 9 RepliesI have a new hose I need to install because the one on now is cracked... I have pulled the metal clip down, but how do I remove this so I can install the new one? I don't want to break anything else yanking on it too hard.
View 5 Repliesreplaced heater core because when pulling a trailer it would admit steam out the defrost vents and the smell of antifreeze, what it could be?
View 8 RepliesI have a 2003 1.8t Jetta and I noticed my heater core is going bad (Common issue) so I smell G12 when I turn on my heat. But randomly and out of no where my car will start to over heat just a little. Never goes into the red though. Farthest it has ever been was about to the second mark past 190. It goes back down eventually and when I pop my hood it bubbles in the reserve a little and it does not do it again for about a few weeks or so. Could this be because of the heater core or might be a thermostat or bad coolant temp sensor?
View 1 RepliesI have a 1999.5 Jetta 2.0 question:
When I run my defrost with the heat on, I smell antifreeze pretty strongly. I am also having trouble keeping the windshield defogger/defrosted without the heat constantly blowing on it. Signs point to heater core, right? So I tried a bottle of Bars Leaks aluminum radiator stop leak with the metal flakes in it. When I run the heat on the feet or front/face/torso setting, it does not smell like antifreeze (unless it's when it very first starts and it's so slight that I don't notice). When I run the defrost with the heat on, it smells pretty strongly of antifreeze. I see no antifreeze on the passenger side carpet.
I'm guessing my heater core is bad as I smell coolant thru the vents. I think the blend door is broke too. I'm guessing the heater core and blend door are in the same area?
View 2 RepliesMk7 GTI, currently at 5k miles but strong mildew smell coming from the vents.. I know the cabin air filters will last at least 15-20k miles.
I read before that the condensation hoses were sometimes installed incorrectly leading to run off inside the cabin. Can that be it?
For the past month or so I've noticed that there are a few strange smells coming from the air vents on my GTI. Firstly, if the car sits for awhile and then is started it smells like that model airplane glue or some kind of strong adhesive inside the cabin. It goes away rather quickly. The second one worries me more. When I run the car hard for a few minutes (higher speeds, highway pull or two, etc.) and then come to a stop at a light, there is a very distinctive "burning" smell. It might sound gross, but the closest thing I can think of that smells like it is the smell in a dentists office when you're getting a cavity drilled out of a tooth.
View 7 RepliesI have an 01 GTI GLX with climatronic, and I've noticed this hot plastic or hot wire smell in the vents. Yes the fan wire gets hot when the car is hot and AC is on. But I don't think that's it. I've torn the passenger side apart, took the blower motor out, not it. The vent / recirculate motor is external to the vents, the only other place is behind the radio for the other one. What else is internal, if anything, that could be causing this smell? I'm concerned that something will melt or burn up.
I've been wondering if the ecm in the cowl would be getting hot but I can't smell anything with the plastics on. I would say it does seem to occur after driving for about ten minutes in town. But it also seems like it's there when I first start it up also.
Plastic coupling between core and hose, is there a specialty to needed to remove from heater core?
View 1 RepliesLast week I got a hole in my lower heater coolant line and I did a quick fix and added G12 to get the car home but I got to thinking, the way I'm using this car now, I'm not so sure I need the heater.
View 6 RepliesOkay, so the car in question is a 2003 Escort ZX2 with roughly 110k on the clock. It's run like a champ up until now. My wife was driving it home from work the other day and said that there was a burning smell coming through the vents, then the coolant temp gauge on the dash went all the way to hot and stayed there, and the heat simultaneously stopped working.
She got it home and I quickly found out that the car IS NOT overheating. Something screwy is going on with the gauge and it will sit at cold for 10 minutes, then go all the way to hot, then sit in the middle, and it's just all over the place. However, the engine fan works fine and comes on at the appropriate time, the engine does not overheat at all, and other than the gauge acting weird and the heat not working, the car runs as it always has.
So, just a as a measure of preventative maintenance I replaced the thermostat, thermostat housing, and both clip-in coolant temp sensors on the thermostat housing. This seems to have fixed nothing, but oh well.
Next, I let the car heat up and checked the two hoses going to the heater core in the firewall. One hose is just slightly warm (even at full operating temperature) and the other is completely cold.
When you get in the car and attempt to turn the heat on, all the blower motor speeds work. When you turn the dial from cold to hot you can see under the dash that the cable that opens the blend doors is working fine as well. However, no heat at all, it's just cold air that comes from the vents even on the hottest setting.
The heater core isn't leaking at all, this has been confirmed.
So, I'm unsure where to go from here. The wacky coolant temp gauge seems like maybe it's the actual gauge itself that's gone south (in which case I'd need a new gauge cluster I suspect). The heat though perplexes me. Sure, the heater core could be plugged but that seems rather unlikely considering the coolant has always been regularly flushed and when you open up the radiator there's no gunk or rust or anything in the system at all.
I was driving home today when I accelerated to go up a hill and started smelling something burning, pulled over and noticed my flex pipe was completely blown apart and the heat shield behind it smoking. I pulled over and got some water on it and it stopped but after I started driving again the smoke got even worse. This time it was something different than the first time. Could it be the heater core going or the foam inside the hvac system burning?
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