LILBENZ230

Okay.. so for the past few days, my car stinks after it is driven. Not a sulphur/gas related smell, not a dead-animal smell, but something completely different. It permeates from underneath the car after it's parked and can only be smelled outside the car. A friend told me it smelled like rotten food. To me, it smells sickly sweet & burnt, like burning plastic only sweeter. It's horrible and I can't find the source. I've opened the hood and it isn't coming from there. Just now when I parked it, it seemed like it could possibly be coming from the rear brakes. They are worn out (visually you can see it), but they're not making any noise. My car has no rear pad sensors. It is behaving and driving normally.

Any ideas? It's horrible and I'm worried something is going to happen.

bdgdl08

Sounds like antifreeze to me. Anything dripping? Maybe it's just dripping onto your engine and burning off. Sorry, that's all I've got.

LILBENZ230

That's what I thought, too. But opening the hood and no smell there. It seems more concentrated at the rear of the car.

bdgdl08

That's weird! No fluids on the ground?

LILBENZ230

Nope.

bdgdl08

Any bags of takeout sitting on your muffler?

SunnyRayToronto

The only way burning anti-freeze smell could be coming from the rear is if you had a engine gasket leak where anti-freeze is leaking into the engine and mixing with engine oil. The engine burns off the anti-freeze,... and you should also be seeing a blu-ish white exhaust smoke coming out of your tailpipe. Put it in neutral,.. idle and gas it,... rev the engine and see if there's any blu-ish white smoke coming out.

Another possibility is that you driven over a plastic bag and it got stabbed/stuck to the bottom of your exhaust system,...

havoc_vulture

maybe you picked up roadkill and it's on you tires or fender
or bags too like stated above
my mom caught a bag on here drive line once (go figure)

acr2001

I'm voting for a plastic bag on the exhaust. Take a look under the car.

TemjinX2

i agree with the plastic bag theory.

FrankW

roadkill, plastic bags, OR some animal such as squirrel/rats climbed up somewhere and died.

tommy

Considering where you live, you may have picked up some white trash somewhere along the way.

I'd agree on the plastic bag idea; happened to me once.

mtnman82

Truly hope it's just a bag that got melted (or something else stuck to) the exhaust somewhere. If it is a head gasket and your burning antifreeze you should notice a loss of coolant. Keep a close look for this - burning anti-freeze in the cylinders would not be a good thing...

ScottW911

+1

It happened to me last year. It was hard to spot but, geeze, did it smell awful for a couple of weeks.

LILBENZ230

It's not losing coolant or smoking from the exhaust in any scenario. But I also don't see anything under the car. Again today it seemed to be coming from rear brakes. They're pretty worn. I should replace them immeditately.

bdgdl08

Off topic, but I really like the beach picture.

W203E35

Did you ever find out what the smell was?

Maybe someone tried to shove something in your muffler?

I can imagine someone shoving a banana in the muffler as a joke (maybe local kids)

ontmiss

When plastic bag melts around exhaust pipe it’s really hard to notice if you don’t raise the car on hoist and take closer look.

OneOfaKindTrini

Do you have a plastic bag stuck under your car?

LILBENZ230

I haven't been able to lift it. The smell is still there and a friend described it perfectly as smelling like a hot glue gun.

bdgdl08

Sounds like a plastic bag to me, then.

LILBENZ230

I'm gonna have the rear pads put on tomorrow and get it hoisted to see if anything obvious is there.

mleskovar

Look at your strut bushings to see if they're leaking. I had a bad smell...not like burned oil, but close....and it turned out to be the silicone in the bushings getting hot. Wasn't leaking bad enough to spot the garage floor. Soon as I replaced them the smell stopped.

LILBENZ230

Thanks Mike, I'll check that out.

LILBENZ230

RESOLVED!

I had the rear brakes replaced today, and while the car was on the lift we found a plastic bag stuck to the exhaust mid-way down the car. Gee, you people are smart. I really didn't think it would be that simple because it never is for me. We removed all the we could and the rest will just have to burn off.

Did I mention that the brakes are really one of my favorite features about this car? They're robust and powerful, not frail and weak. The C230K was the first German for me, replacing a long line of mostly Honda cars. My original rear brakes had exactly 76,401 miles on them today - all that needed replaced were pads. The rotors were within spec and didn't even need machining. My fronts have 23,000 miles on them and are fine. No vibrations, noises.. excellent pedal feedback and smooth, powerful stops. Do you know what a Honda would do to its brakes in this amount of time? Rear brakes on modern Hondas last less than 20,000 miles in my experience. They were shot at 15,000 on my Civic Si (2007) and Accord (2005). I just love it that these brakes work so well and aren't fragile. Sorry, soapbox here..