Dekri

A little while ago I started noticing a smell coming from outside my car, at first, it wasn't very strong I thought that maybe it was coming from muffler or another car. A week or so later the smell started to get really strong and now I am almost possitive its coming from my car. The smell only happens when I rev it high or I am idle (thats when I notice it most)

Its a really strong smell. It hurts my stomach and makes me want to hold my breath when I smell it. All the gauges seem to be normal so I don't know what could be going on. Can anybody help me figure out what it is?

Yosemite Stars

I had a terrible smell and a mechanic suggested altenators can smell awlful as they are going out. Seems mine was residue from a steam cleaning burning off. good luck!

Glenn

What exactly does it smell like? More detail than "bad" would help.

Tofer

dead cat that crawled up into your engine to get warm? this happend to my firend once.

Dekri

Its hard to explain, like I said above it hurts the stomach when I smell it, Its kind of a sour smell. I've don't know anything to compare it to.

Glenn

Sulphur? Dead animal?

jimbo74

bad smell is quite vague.. there has to be something you can compare it to..... there are soooo many smells that a vehicle can have or make that makes diagnosis without a reference point impossible.... what is nasty to you might smell good to someone else... i love the smell of gasoline, nitromethane, and gear oil... however those smells make a lot of people sick to their stomachs

Bob_98SR5

dekri,

does it smell like urine? if so, it might be accumulated mold from your AC condensor unit.

bob

Dekri

No it doesn't smell like a dead animal, sulfer or urine... Though I've been told it may be anti-freeze, I don't know how though. I just recently got a radiator flush and changed the anti-freeze. Ill see if I can find somebody who can compare the smell to something.

Its just hard to describe since I've never smelled anything like it.

dwh91102

usually a "bad smell" is a some what of a sulfur smell and its from the catalytic coverter being plugged up.

jimbo74

depends on what the person thinks is bad...... liek i said earlier there are some car smells i liek that would make other people sick... i love the way gear oil smells.....

axon

Sorry to Hi-Jack this but, I also have a bad smell, kind of like mildew. It started after it was in the shop for a new HG, timing belt, water pump and radiator. Just know its coming from the engine compartment. At first I thought it was "burn off" but it been way to long for that.

Silver_Truck

could be your pcv...they can smell kinda nasty if they're just dumping into the air

Agent 7

Anti-freeze would be my guess... It's pretty pungent and with you having a flush and fill recently I would say that would be it. Do you know how it was mixed? 60/40 50/50 30/70? If it has a higher concentration of anti-freeze it will be much more noticeable when your engine gets hotter......

btw gear oil smells like beer nuts and puke! I can't stomach that S*@$!

Dekri

This is a bad smell, I also like the smells of the things you said earlier but if you like this smell you've probably be living in a full port-a-potty for a month or so
This is what my dad thought it might be. Is there a way to pull it out and see if its plugged up and unplug it? Or would I be able to pull one off a runner from the junkyard? And if I did does it matter the gen or the runner? or do they all match.
This was my first thought. Does the smell go away eventually or will it always be there? It was a little under a month ago I had the radiator flush.

If it is any of these that you guys are saying, will it effect my runner at all? I'll be driving up to the mountains for a week on the first week of June and I don't want it to break down on me up there.

Dekri

Well, I've basically narrowed the smell down to the catalytic converter. So I had my mom ask my uncle who works at a junkyard what to do, since I was out this morning while he came over to my house. I guess he basically said what he does is he takes out the converter and cleans it out really well and cuts something inside of it in-half to give more power...

Does anybody know anything about this? Is there any write-ups or anything on it, I don't know the name of what ever it is called so I can't do a search for it.

Glenn

Hollowing out the catalytic converter is illegal. You aren't supposed to remove exhaust components according to Uncle Sam. Not only will you be polluting far more than before, the power gains are not going to be very much.

If it really is your catalytic converter going bad, there are replacements that don't have a lot of restrictions.

cubuff4runner

Toyota's are notorious for having sulfur smelling cats. Many new ones smell, so it doesn't always mean that the cat is bad. There have been numerous discussions about this on the board and it seems to always come down to the brand of gas you use. If I use Amaco gas, no smell whereas if I put Texaco gas in I am a moving stinkbomb. So the question is did you fill up with gas somewhere different than you normally do lately?

Dekri

Actually I have started getting gas at another place. I usually go to king soopers to get my gas and have, in the past month or so, started going to a place that always seems to be a few cents cheaper than the rest called express gas, or something like that.

kevin444

I started having a funky smell out of no where. It happened when i turned on the fan with no ac in fresh air mode and i had this really farty smell out of no where while cleaning the windshields. No i did not fart!