I was driving my car (02 - 20K miles) pretty hard yesterday, then all of a sudden I got this smell that smells like burnt coolant. pulled off the road, and the smell was definitely coming from the engine bay-- it stunk!.... could have sworn the exhaust fumes had a hint of it as well....

Details that could be pertinent:
1) I took it all the way to redlined a bunch of times during a 10 minute period or so before the smelled appeared

2) I changed the oil (just switched to synthetic 2 wks ago) and spilled a bit on the engine block, but I've driven the car hard after that and didn't have any such smell-- was thinking that the spilled oil could be a possible cause

3) When I first smelled it I was at 89mph in third, but I could have sworn I was in 4th and attempting to shift into 5th... but I believe this "possible mishift" is unlikely because I know for sure I did not hit a 100mph.... the distance was too short, and I drive on this road all the time, but I have to admit that I am a bit confused about the whole thing and am not completely ruling out a mishift. (B/w what is redline in 4th, maybe that will help me recall (if it's something like 115 then for sure I didn't hit that since I was only shifting at redline--- I don't have access to the car right now to go out and try it).

4) It was definitely not a burnt clutch smell-- i know that one, and this wasn't it

5) Have not changed coolant recently

Also, I drove it after it had cooled down and VTECed and no perceptible loss of power.

Thanks for any info you can provide.

 

if coolant was the culprit, woudnt the temp spike on the car? How hard were u braking? Sometimes brakes can smell pretty aweful if they get hot enough, and ours are not well known for heat disipation.

John

 

I notice that the coolant resevoir will spill coolant under hard cornering. I guess it might be possible that some coolant spilled out of there and landed on something hot... although it's not likely.

 

i use some coolant every few thousand miles, i have toped it up once in 16,000 miles, so i guess the car uses some coolant in normal driving, which includes hireving...thus you rev the engine more and more and you will use more coolant,no?

 

The temp of the car didn't spike-- stayed at 3 bars

Did quite a bit of braking so maybe it was the brakes.... but that's a bit doubtful to me since I've been in harsher braking conditions and didn't get this smell....

The coolant reservoir is right above the minimum mark on my car.

hirev, it was a pretty harsh smell so I doubt it was from "normal coolant usage"

Follow up question: is there anyway I could have blown a seel or something like that, which might cause this smell.....

 

Could it have been clutch smell from momentary slips between shifts?

 

Do our cars have diff vents? On my Z06 there is a differential vent where diff fluid can escape if you are running hard. I havent noticed this but people say it smells terrible.