Pete Croney

Hi Andy

If you can smell the burning when the car is moving, it must be coming from the front.

If your car is a 98, I would check the front driveshaft couplings. Some of these had the wrong grease, which leaks and oozes onto the exhaust system, burning up on contact. The grease is grey, in colour and can be seen streaking down the gearbox.

Zip

After I had mine done, the Ramair ('cos it's oil-filled - and soaked in the stuff)leaked a whole load of its tacky blue oily stuff from the bottom edge of the airbox (is this normal!?) I haven't noticed any smell, and if the leak isn't excessive you wouldn't notice 'cos its hidden under the box. Could this be leaking onto anything hot under your bonnett? Just a thought.

Zip

Andy Holden

I had a Scoobysport exhaust and ramair filter fitted about 1,500 miles ago. There was the usual 'new exhaust smell' as the oil etc burnt off it.

However, I still have an unpleasant and slightly worrying hot/not quite burning smell which is noticeable from the inside of the car even when on the move at motorway speeds.

Temp gauge hasn't moved from normal, don't think its the brakes as I assume they check those at the 7,500 mile service which was done just before the exhaust was fitted. The engine isn't using oil and the smell isn't electrical. The rear box isn't any closer to the car body than the standard box, so I'm not seting fire to the underside of the car!

Probably unconnected with the Scoobysport so does anyone have any ideas? The only reason I haven't been straight round to the dealer is I expect they will point at the Scoobysport and say 'sorry mate, warranty invalid'.

Andy Holden

Thanks Pete - didn't mean to cast dispersions on your magnificant rear box (!)Mine is a 98 MY - I'll have a look at the gearbox to see if there are any traces of grease.

Is this a problem for the driveshaft couplings - i.e is the wrong grease going to cause damage?

Next question is if its a known problem why hasn't the dealer told me about it.....?

andymac

Hi,
I had a similar problem in my last car. Nasty burning smell - especially when I stopped the car or it had been running very hot (i.e., given a good spanking). I was all in for taking it to a garage to get it sorted but on opening the bonnet after a hot run and looking in to see if something had burnt (I thought it might have been the cam cover paint) I spotted something underneath the car. Somehow I had got a thick piece of plastic bag melted onto the front section of my exhaust pipe ! Must have driven over it or it blown under when the exhaust was hot. Suffice to say that this was the cause of the smell. Managed to remove a lot of it by pulling it off, but I would have needed to get right under the car in order to scrape it off the pipe directly. Eventually the smell wore off, presumably as the plastic melted away.

cheers

Andy

Andy Holden

I've now been to the dealers who had it up on a ramp - no leaks from the drive shaft couplings. They did seem to think one wheel arch smelt of cow s**t (actually it was horse s**t!), and there was a three inch nail stuck in one of the rear tyres (!).

There was also a lot of the blue gunk from the Ramair which had leaked out from the airbox - they steam cleaned that area and the smell seems to have disappeared - although I haven't done a long motorway run yet to confirm.

Of course now the aircon is making a racket....!

Thanks for the advice though guys.