I recently replaced my brake calipers on BOTH sides because they had seized up and were dragging on the rotors and pads. T This is a bit of enlightenement for me because I think I know what killed my poor brake pistons!
View 19 RepliesFor the last month or so my car (2005 Subaru Outback LL Bean) has been producing a burning odor. It smells like air out of a latex balloon that has been burnt. I took the car to my mechanic but was unable to reproduce the smell. He asked if the car only produced the smell going uphill as it could be my coolant leaking. Since then I have noticed that the car does in fact produce the smell primarily, if not exclusively going uphill. But coolant should smell sweet not burnt?
View 12 RepliesOnly had happened a few times in the last month. I start the car and it idles okay. drive down the road and then come to s stop and there's some blue smoke. It smells like burning oil. it only has happens 2 times in the last 2 months. only when its really cold it has happend. If I rev it when its happening I can see a big plume of bluish smoke and it smells like burning oil. after i drive after that no more smoke.
car has 95k on it
never been chipped
car has full turbo back and intake
car does not burn any oil between oil changes. oil stays at the same level.
did break an oil pan about 4 months ago. when I replaced it no signs on sludge.
turbo boosts fine
Car has had a rough idle for a long time. only when its a cold start and only last about 20 seconds. When I boost it or redline the car which is very rare no smoke at all. I have always kept the oil more on the high side of full. I usually fill it right to the high mark on the dip stick.
I've had my 2001 Ford Ranger for almost a year now 240,000 miles, almost no problems until now. It doesn't overheat, but smoke is coming from the hood and smells like burning oil EVERYTIME I start it up & drive it. I don't think its a head gasket problem, but I could be wrong.
View 3 RepliesI have a 2003 rav4 with about 100000 miles on it. Over the last 4 months I have noticed that, whenever I drive half hour or longer on the highway the car starts to smell like burning rubber or burning antifreeze or something like that. I live close to work, play, and groceries, so I don't drive it that long very often. I have not noticed decreased levels of any of my fluids. No change in performance either. I've had the oil changed regularly and no problems there. I am about to drive it a thousand plus miles and would love to get this figured out before I go.
View 7 RepliesI have a 2006 SAAB 9-2X, that I just bough used with 116k. The car rides great and I am really enjoying it. The one problem is that there is an intermittent smell of burning. Some days its strong, some days there is no smell at all. It is really weird. I took it to my mechanic for its inspection and he passed it and said that the care looked great. I havent seen a leak, the check engine light is not on and there is no smoke.
View 15 RepliesI am not sure what is going on with my car. I have a 1998 saturn sc2 and this morning it started smoking from the tailpipe. The oil is black but the smoke smells like something is burning......
View 3 RepliesSo I run a custom sct tune as my daily driver. Every 6 months or so my turbo starts acting funny. I get a weird turbo bark on wot. The shift pattern gets thrown off. It feels like something is about to break in a bad way.
But then it fixes itself. I return my truck to stock and run a couple laps down the highway. It blows smoke, stinks, and smells like something is burning for about 15 minutes then it is fine. I change it back to the custom tune and it runs fine for 6 months again.
What this is? Is this an egr valve or ebp sensor?
So my auxiliary battery started dying and I had to jump start it when it was dead. One dark morning I reversed the cables on my wife's car when jumping it. The portion on the Prius that I had hooked up the cables to started glowing. I unhooked them, and when I got inside my car I noticed several warning lights on (ABS, etc). Once I got the car started I drove to work, but the brakes were no longer working correctly, and if I hit them hard they would lock up and I would skid, with tons of white smoke from the tires. I took the car to Toyota, but they wanted $550 to replace the auxiliary battery and run a diagnosis. They said they could not run any computer tests as the car's auxiliary batter was too low.
So I ordered the battery. In the meantime, the brakes wore down to metal on metal on the front driver's side. I took the car to Firestone and they wanted $850 to replace the pad, rotor, and caliber, which they said was stuck. I then put the new auxiliary battery in the car myself (it was relatively easy) and took it to Toyota. They said the ABS relay needed to be replaced. After waiting two days for the part to come in, I then get informed that the skid control ECU needs to be replaced, at which point they will "recheck as necessary with diagnosis." After doing some googling, there is some indication that the problem might not be the skid control ECU.
I've had the car for 130k/2 yrs, and been very happy with it. Will definitely buy another. That said, I'm puzzled. Yesterday and today, after it had run for 10-20 minutes at surface-street speeds (so was warmed up), I got stuck at a lengthy traffic light and noticed a distinct smell of gasoline - not other cars' exhaust, but a fuel smell coming in on the blown air in the cabin. I have done no mechanical work on the car, or spilled gas into the glove box.
View 6 RepliesMy 2005 Prius has 281,000 miles and is burning oil. No smoke or leakage just have to add oil between oil changes. I drive about 30,000 miles per year with my job. Car is paid for and I love not having a car payment, but fear this may be the beginning of the end.
View 4 RepliesI have a 2006 Prius and for the past four years I have to replace my headlamps at least once a year. These are not the HID headlamps that were notoriously an issue. However, I replaced them this past July and they've both burned out again in the past month.
View 10 RepliesHistory: 2005 Prius has 130,000 miles and was rear ended in mid November (less than 2 months ago) on drivers side rear.
Yesterday my husband was driving at 65 MPH when all the lights on the dash all lit up for a second before the entire car died. The car was DEAD, wouldn't do anything except the lights worked (I'm assuming cause it's the starter battery). Ran hazards for approx an hour waiting on tow truck but the rear left light only flashed approx 1 in 10 times compared with the rear right light. Car had a terrible burned smell.
1.5 hours later the tow truck shows up and says "your car smells terrible". We towed it to Toyota Dealership.
OK, updating my test with my 2006 127k mile engine burning oil. After 2 OCI with MMO added to the oil, it has not improved the oil burning. I was using 3 quarts 5w30 oil and added 1/2 quart of MMO. Oil burning seems to be about 1 quart 1500 miles or so. I believe before this MMO test, the car was burning around 1 quart every 2000 miles or so.
This may be because the oil has been thinned out by MMO but not really sure. Next OCI, I will be using Pennzoil Platinum Synthetic 5w30, because I heard that oil has exceptional cleaning power.
I've got an 08 Gen II with 173k miles on it. The last few days of coming up the huge hill in front of our house I've noticed a burning smell, link burnt coolant.
So today I actually popped the hood to investigate and found a small tuff of smoke coming from the back of the engine.
After climbing underneath I found a leak of some sort of brown/cream fluid.. Kinda scary color. Anyways it seems when put a significant load on the car going up a hill it sprays this fluid on the exhaust, thus the burning smell..
Oil is clean on the stick and under the cap.
This morning I noticed a strong burning odor, like burning wax. It only seems to occur on high current regen events (eg coming off the freeway). It also happens to be raining, although I'm not sure if that's part of the issue or just a coincidence.
View 5 RepliesThe uneven wear occurred again, this time only giving me 22,644 miles on the rear brakes. So, I am on my third set of rear brakes at 78,000 miles.
This time the dealer contacted the district rep since this was a repeat occurrence. It turns out a week after my first rear brake job, Toyota issued T-SB-0248-12, for this very problem, on the 2010 - 2012 Prius and on the 2012 Prius PHV. There is a new brake pad that is supposed to address this problem. The old part number that was put on my car during the first brake job was 04466-76011 and the new part number is 04466-47080. The receipt also shows Brake Shim Grease part number 08887-80409, which is noted in the TSB.
Toyota did the right thing in that they covered the cost of the brake job I just had done. I just opened a case asking to be reimbursed for the first brake job since this turned out to be a problem that was addressed with a new part.
I suggest anyone with a 2010-2012 Prius or 2012 Prius PHV that needs rear brakes, make sure you insist on getting this updated pad and point out this TSB. My service adviser said they were going to replace all of their pads with the old part number with the updated pad, so other customers going forward receive this new pad, though he also said they just don't do a lot of Prius brake jobs.
We have a 2007 Prius and have been very happy with it overall. The right rear tail light keeps burning out and we keep taking it back to the local Toyota dealer for replacement, but they have been very good about it. Though an annoyance, if that was the only problem we had I would not be here right now typing this.
Today my wife was driving and came to an intersection at a red light to make a right-hand turn. She braked coming into the turn and as she made the turn. What happened next scared her and is very concerning to us -
Basically, my car (2002 Mazda Protege) has been acting like my brakes are engaged. Not all the time, though - The first time I get out and drive it, it drives smooth as silk like always. But then after I put it in park and then get back in and head out (I'm a delivery driver, so this is constant), sometimes it feels like the brakes are constantly being pressed. No, the emergency brake is not on. Most of the time it's almost not even noticeable so, like an idiot, I put it off for the past week. But today, it was very, very, very bad. I was having to press the gas to the floor to get up to speed, and then it was constantly trying to slow down. My brakes were definitely getting burned up while it was doing this, but luckily it stopped.
It may be unrelated - I know I have an oil leak, but today I saw a very unusual spot where something leaked out in my driveway. I checked my oil, and it was where I expected it to be, but this was a relatively large stain which would be very unlike my current leak.
This is a 2005 GX470 with 125k miles. We've had this truck for 3+ years and this is the first time we're experiencing this issue.
2 days ago, i noticed that there is a strange moldy smell inside the cabin when i drove the car around town. Not too strong, but definitely noticeable. It was not the usual musty/humid smell that all cars have after you drive them with the AC on for awhile and then you turn it off. This usual smell is common in a lot of cars, i've had it in the Lexus too, and it usually goes away after 10 mins or so.
What i have in our car is a different smell. It smells like there is a piece of old moldy wood or moldy piece of cloth left under the seat for a long time. The smell does not go away. I am 95% sure it comes from the vents on the dashboard.
Today i checked the entire cabin and all floors for leftover food, wet clothes, stains, spills and i found nothing. The car is clean. Carpet appears dry and very clean for a 10yr old car. No strange stains. Nothing inside the car smells like mold, especially when it is not running.
When i start the engine, the smell creeps up. It appears to be coming from the vents. I checked the cabin air filter. It is not brand new, about a year old, but it DOES NOT smell like mold at all. I ordered a new filter but i doubt this will fix the issue. The current filter is not wet or smelly. It's not the source. What else should i check?
There must be an AC condenser drain hole somewhere under the car. Not sure if this is obstructed or not. Where is the AC drain located exactly? Any pointers will be useful.
I have a 2004 Subaru Forester, today when I turned on the heater fan I noticed that electrical (melting) smell, and the fan thus only ran very slowly on setting three and mostly okay on setting four, but not really at all on setting one or two. I found where the fan is located, but was wondering if it is the blower motor or the blower motor resister. I think on high, the blower motor by-passes the resister, and it seemed as though the smell really only occurred when I had the blower set on a lower setting. The resister is about $45 and the blower is about $145. If I can get by with only replacing the resister, that would be cool because I am assuming a new blower motor does not come with a new resister attached and I would have to buy that separately.
View 4 Replies