[CYANiDE]

Well, ever since I bought the car I've had a slightly strange coolant smell under hard acceleration and at high speeds. Smells comes in through the vents while I driving and it's sort of a sweet smell, so I'm assuming it's the coolant. It must be minimal though because I've only added maybe 4 ounces of coolant over 1.5 years (it went down from about halfway up to max down to the min).

If I walk to my exhaust is sort of smells like a hint of coolant so I believe it's being burnt.

Hard Acceleration = 3/4 throttle to WOT - it will start smelling a few seconds after I'm punching it until about 15-20 seconds after I've stopped accelerating.

High speeds = even if I cruise to about 90-100mph the smell comes around but definitely less noticeable than under hard acceleration.



Any ideas what the problem could be? Is it something I should be worried about?

 

[RinconVTR]

Head gasket. But at 60k miles, that would be odd.

 

[crackerteg]

Eric, check my reply on ECM. I'm too damn lazy to copy and paste.

 

[CYANiDE]

Z - I checked it.

Currently at 64,000 miles, but there is no smoke coming from my tailpipes so I'm not sure if it's a leak or if it's actually being burned. I assumed it's a leak, then the coolant is dripping onto something hot in the engine bay and burning up.

 

[RinconVTR]

Z - I checked it.

Currently at 64,000 miles, but there is no smoke coming from my tailpipes so I'm not sure if it's a leak or if it's actually being burned. I assumed it's a leak, then the coolant is dripping onto something hot in the engine bay and burning up.

Yep. You wont smell thru the vents if its being burnt and sent out the tail pipe.

And the more I think about this, I have also seen hints of water pumps begining to fail when people get a wiff of coolant thru the vents. Typically, the weep hole drips a very small amount when the seal begins to fail. Sometimes the seal itself can weep.

 

[CYANiDE]

Yep. You wont smell thru the vents if its being burnt and sent out the tail pipe.

And the more I think about this, I have also seen hints of water pumps begining to fail when people get a wiff of coolant thru the vents. Typically, the weep hole drips a very small amount when the seal begins to fail. Sometimes the seal itself can weep.

Which seal? The seal for the water pump?

 

[RinconVTR]

Which seal? The seal for the water pump?

The shaft seal, not the housing.

 

[LFSoccer2k6]

Does it smell like syrup?

 

[digitalh3lix]

send a sample of your oil to blackstone labs. they'll test if theres any antifreeze in the oil.

 

[CYANiDE]

Does it smell like syrup?

Not even exactly sure what it smells like. It does indeed smell burnt, not just a sweet smell, sort of burnt but sweet.

I am going to send my oil to Blackstone when I do my next oil change (got my kit in the mail a week or so ago).

So many things I'm reading up it could be: leak, bad heater core, bad water pump or radiator, or headgasket issue.

 

[RinconVTR]

Blackstone will only tell you if the oil has coolant in it from an internal coolant leak vs what your smelling while driving is probably an external leak. If its in the oil, you'd probably be burning it too, meaning you'd have some white smoke out the exhaust. Something to watch for.

For $25, its worth checking. And that will help narrow things down for you. Good luck!

 

[CYANiDE]

Blackstone will only tell you if the oil has coolant in it from an internal coolant leak vs what your smelling while driving is probably an external leak. If its in the oil, you'd probably be burning it too, meaning you'd have some white smoke out the exhaust. Something to watch for.

For $25, its worth checking. And that will help narrow things down for you. Good luck!

Yep, if I can eliminate the internal stuff, I'd be happier so I don't have to really worry about engine work. I think it's worth it for $25, so I'm just gong to do it. I'm going to see if I can do a compression test and post my results.