Slight Burning Rubber/Plastic Smell Near Exhaust

petejoneria · **Posted:** Wed Jan 20, 2010 4:02 pm

Three times over the past two weeks I've smelled a slight burning rubber/plastic scent coming from the rear right side of my Jeep. I pretty much stuck my face in the exhaust pipe, but still can't tell if that is the exact source of the smell.

I live in Germany and two of the times were after driving for about 10 miles at 90mph w/ dry roads. Once was after driving about 15 minutes on back roads, never going over 45mph in the snow. The first two times were about two weeks ago, smell went away and didn't happen again until tonight. I've looked around and don't see anything rubbing on the tires or anything.

It doesn't really smell like smoke from a burnout, more like if you were to throw something plastic on an open fire.

Any ideas?

Diggerfreek · **Posted:** Wed Jan 20, 2010 4:09 pm

check the heat shield that protects the tire to make sure it isn't contacting the tire or exhaust pipe....

Elt31987 · **Posted:** Wed Jan 20, 2010 4:16 pm

Maybe the bushing that the exhaust hangs from ??????

petejoneria · **Posted:** Wed Jan 20, 2010 4:23 pm

Will do. I'll go take the dog out and check those.

Diggerfreek · **Posted:** Wed Jan 20, 2010 4:31 pm

Let up know....

Are there any missing animals where you live? :ROTFL:

petejoneria · **Posted:** Wed Jan 20, 2010 4:42 pm

Just got back in from under the Jeep. No signs of anything. The tires look good, nothing rubbing and no marks on the tires. Heat shield around the spare looks fine. The exhaust hanger looks good (no resonator, so it's pretty far from the pipe).

Funny about the animal though.... I clean my engine bay about twice a month. A couple weeks ago I noticed a bunch of hair on the hood liner. Sunday I cleaned the engine bay again and got all the hair out. It's pretty common for small rodents to chew on wires/sleep in people's engine bays in the winter around here. None of my wires were chewed though. Maybe something died in there and just gets burned up every now and then! Could be burning hair, but no rotting smell in the engine....

Diggerfreek · **Posted:** Wed Jan 20, 2010 4:50 pm

On other thought, how new is your KK? a lot of times with new mufflers, they produce a horrible smell while breaking in.

The other thing may be your brakes. I can understand the time in the snow because of the traction control. Also, were you hard on your brakes when doing 90? if you were on your brakes a lot for extended periods of time, it could cause them to smoke slightly..

petejoneria · **Posted:** Wed Jan 20, 2010 5:02 pm

I've had it since it was new, almost 2 years. I drive the autobahn daily to and from work and don't abuse the brakes or anything. It gets driven the same every day, but I've only smelled it a few times. I took the resonator off last May, and the smell is different than new exhaust.

Next time I smell it I'll have to get under there before it wears off and track it down.

Thanks for the help.

Diggerfreek · **Posted:** Wed Jan 20, 2010 5:21 pm

I see... Please keep us posted if you find anything....

clacker · **Posted:** Mon Mar 01, 2010 4:57 pm

Ive recently been having a similar issue, but ive concluded that its just my new Thrush muffler breaking in

JeepinJarhead03 · **Posted:** Mon Mar 01, 2010 5:51 pm

mufflers or new components will have a very distinct stink when breaking in, but it generally goes away completely after you finally drive it about 100 miles at a time, or takes longer on short intervals but should go away very quickly

Diggerfreek · **Posted:** Mon Mar 01, 2010 9:11 pm

Yeah, my flow master stunk big time!

JeepinJarhead03 · **Posted:** Mon Mar 01, 2010 10:51 pm

i never smelled mine, mine got put on, and immediately driven about 140 miles

Slight Burning Rubber/Plastic Smell Near Exhaust

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