Lexus RX 2010-15 :: Burning Smell In Cabin After Air Comes Out From Vents
Sep 8, 2014
When starting the RX, I smell something I would describe as "burning insulation". It happens only first 10-20 seconds after the air comes out from the vents, and then the smell disappears. The smell is stronger after prolonged parking. It is the strongest in the morning and less noticeable after I start the RX 2-3 more times ( I usually make 6-8 short trips during the day). The smell was very strong when I started the RX first time after it was parked for one week (while we went on vacation).
There are no warning lights, and the vehicle runs just fine. I pulled out the carbon cabin filter (changed about 3 mo ago) - it did not smell and was very clean still. I am hesitant to go to the dealer-afraid they will rip apart the dash, which they probably will not be able to put back together without having rattles and noises after.
The smell comes from the inside - there is no smell under the hood after I start the RX.
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Big time burning smell in the cabin at the end of a high speed run. smells like belts burning maybe.
There's a stretch i take on the way home sometimes, and i can open up and get up to about 120 easily. did it last week and got a strong burning smell, kinda smells like rubber a bit, but it could be fluids... kinda hard to tell, but absolutely a burning smell. but i wasn't sure if it was me.
Did it again yesterday, car pulls perfectly fine, but the cabin was again filled with a burning smell. no CEL's, no nothing that i can tell. cools down perfectly and everything, no beats skipped. All my maintenance is up to date.
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I just had a blown motor swapped with a used engine with around 50,000 on it in my 2002 Toyota Camry LE 4 cyl.
After driving the car enough to warm up I turned the vent on and in comes a fairly strong exhaust type smell.
I have driven the car for a little over an hour since the motor swap.
The car is driving fine with plenty of power and no sputtering or rough idling.
I just called my mechanic and he seems to think it is due to the oil that is present on/around the motor/exhaust from the swap that is burning off.
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When stopped at lights I start to smell burning oil coming from the vents when I have the heat on. It only happens every now and then and only when you are stopped at a light. I tried letting the engine idle after driving once and I can't smell it when i open the hood. I do synthetic oil changes every 5,000 since the car was new. I don't know what it could be? My last oil change was about 2,000 miles ago so I can't see it being burn off from the last change still.
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While driving my Montero sport last week, I began smelling a burning rubber smell from the air vents. At the same time I noticed, on the dashboard, that both the brake, and, battery indicators had lit up. There was no smoke, mist, or off sounds, coming from the engine, and, the engine seemed to be running no differently than before this occurred. I drove home, parked the car for 5 days, and, yesterday visually inspected what I could see, which was almost nothing unusual. I started the engine and let it run for about 10 minutes in park.
The engine ran normal, no noticeable knocks or pings, no shaking of the engine, the belts ran smooth, no noticeable leaks of any kind. I checked all fluids and they were at normal levels, only the power steering showed a slightly lower than mid level of fluid, not anywhere near low.line. But, as soon as I started the engine, the dashboard indicators lit up and stayed on. There was only a very faint smell of rubber at the end of the 10 minute running of the engine, barely noticeable. The only thing that I did different recently was about 2 weeks ago I added a quart Pennzoil high mileage motor oil 5-30 instead of the usual GTX high mileage motor oil 5-30 that I usually put in the engine, as there was none available at the store. The auto has ran very well for the past year.
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I recently moved to Pittsburgh where I constantly use my parking brake from Rochester, NY where I rarely ever used it. After I've moved to Pittsburgh (7 months after I've owned this 2004 Subaru Forester). After I drive for a significant amount of time (30+ minutes) and come off the freeway and stop or even slow down, the cabin of the car has a distinct, but faint burning smell. I am wondering if this could be the parking brake rubbing just slightly and when I slow down the smell stays in the cabin or if it is possible that the brakes are smelling (or something entirely different). Keep in mind that the smell doesn't happen when I only take a short drive, which is often. And of course, no I haven't taken this into an auto mechanic yet.
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After battling the general nitwit public earlier. I was on my way home and as I neared my house, a party bus was blocking the road. Well, I got angry, shifted to reverse, revved the engine while letting out the clutch to back up and take a different route. Then this horrible burning electric/plastic smell inundated the inside of my R. I knew I rode that clutch while backing up. My question is did I do noticeable damage my clutch, or is it one of those: it'll be fine just don't do it again thing?
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We have a 2003 Explorer Sportrac and the fuel cap light came on. Then ck engine light came on. took it to a dealer to check it out. Said it has a fuel pressur issue. could be the cap or something in the fuel tank. it needs a pressure check they said. cleared codes and put new factory fuel cap on. 2 weeks later it happened again.
XLT model 108,000 miles on it and we are the original owners...
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Okay, 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.
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So I was sitting in my car, running, parked with the ac on and out of no where I got an electrical/burning smell coming from the vents. My volts were reading 12 with ac on at idle but once my rpms reach about 7-800 it goes back to 14. My question is what was that smell? I've had 2 alternators go on this car (power draining aftermarket accessories 3.3 v6) and have driven the car for about 2 hours collective time since the problem started (usually alternator goes quick) and haven't noticed any lights dimming, ac blows cold, system still plays full tilt. could a bad compressor be causing putting some stress on the car?
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I 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....
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