I know little about cars, but I'm having a problem with my 1999 Sentra XE. It's an automatic with the 1.6L engine. The car is completely stock, factory tape deck etc etc.
I've had the car since November 2003, and it was fine until January. One day, after about 5 minutes of driving I noticed a strong smell of either burning electronics or plastic (not sure which). The car was running fine, temp guage showed normal, and all electronics were working. The smell persisted for about 30 minutes after the car was turned off. We opened the hood, couldn't see any smoke or obvious problems, so we assumed it was just that the handbrake had been left on, or that the heater was turned on too high or something, and thought nothing more of it. The car was fine until today (April 3). Same smell, same results. The car drives fine and all electronics work. There is no smoke or anything... just the awful electronics or plastic smell. This time I'm SURE that the handbrake was off.
Like I said, otherwise the car is perfect, it's in very good condition apart from this strange twice-off smell.
Any ideas on what could cause a phenomenon like this?
Ok, examined under the hood. Had a buddy of mine who knows car electronics check it over as well. He said everything looks fine with that. But after he left I noticed that there is a coolant hose clamp directly over the starter motor. There's leaked coolant crud around the clamp... AND on the starter motor. Could it be that it's occasionally dripping onto the starter and getting burned on the coils?
did you also look under the car to see if you by any chance snagged a plastic bag of some sort and it's stuck to your hot exhaust and burns and melts?? coolant leak on the starter would kill the solenoid but a slow burn is not likely.
hmmm. what could it be?? are you losing coolant??? can you also notice that smell even with the car closed and recirculate on??
Yes small amounts of coolant. And no, the smell doesn't come in with the windows up and the air set to recirculate. We tightened the hose connection that was over the starter.
Last edited by hitman05 : Apr 5th, 2004 at 09:45 PM.
Yes small amounts of coolant. And no, the smell doesn't come in with the windows up and the air set to recirculate. We tightened the hose connection that was over the starter.
We actually saw a problem like that last night while we were trying to adjust the timing on someone's G20. It turned out that the insulation was burning off some of the wires in the alternator. Not quite sure what the fix is yet (I have never had to fix an alernator fire). It isn't visbile at all with the engine off, so you may want to open up the hood and check that the next time it happens.
Linear Mode
