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 its a 2001 outback. today on the way home i noticed an odd rubber like burning smell first smelled it about 10 min after leaving work but it went away and figured it was something i passed by or was following but then about 2 miles from home the smell came back and got stronger. not really sure what it could be i could not find any warm wires no smoke anywhere exhaust smelled normal but the car was definitely making a burning rubber like smell. any ideas what it could have been?

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Axles are not leaking grease the car has 0 oil leaks i had the engine out last year and did all gaskets under side of the car is dry minus a weeping transmission. The smell was non existant driving home until i stopped at a store. Headlights were not on before store when i left i turned the lights on and immediately started smelling it 

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8 hours ago, sirtokesalot said:

Axles are not leaking grease the car has 0 oil leaks i had the engine out last year and did all gaskets under side of the car is dry minus a weeping transmission. The smell was non existant driving home until i stopped at a store. Headlights were not on before store when i left i turned the lights on and immediately started smelling it 

have you checked the headlight bulb connectors? have come across a couple "melted" ones over the years.

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i actually have checked the headlight connectors the first night wiring was cool to touch no melting at the headlights. timing belt looks good i changed the alternator belt and well see if that makes a difference today the old one was a bit stretched 

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Edited by sirtokesalot
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13 hours ago, sirtokesalot said:

i changed the alternator belt

You might have fixed it with the new belt.

You said the belt squealed on start up and then when you turned the headlights on the smell came back. Both of those cause the alternator to charge and put a load on the belt.

A lot of times I use a small wire brush and clean out the grooves in the pulleys with the engine at an idle. Be careful.

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  • 1 month later...

This has been a persistent problem with my '99 OBW for years.  Every time I stopped and got out (after driving for a while) I'd get hit with that burning rubber smell.  Couldn't figure it out, drove me nuts.

Eventually I sussed that it was a leaky PS reservoir/pump that was pooling some fluid on the top of the block.  Once the block heated, it'd begin to smell.

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success - good! 

Wow - wonder how many missed or delayed diagnosis I've had since I can't smell anything. 

On 2/11/2021 at 6:26 AM, mdconvert said:

Given the OPs name could the smell be caused by something unrelated to the car? :)

Until you find it you may want to carry a fire extinguisher with you and don't park it in the garage in case it goes up.

post of the year!

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interesting thing i found out on this. the smell hadent stopped because i changed the belt. the smell stopped because the thing that was burning up finished burning up. i found both my fog lights not working a while after i changed the belt and when i dug into it the entire hid setup i had self destructed from the wires burning off of the bulbs and both ballasts being melted in the centers. i picked at the burnt rubber around the bulbs and it released the same exact smell i had been smelling.

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On 3/24/2021 at 8:22 AM, sirtokesalot said:

interesting thing i found out on this. the smell hadent stopped because i changed the belt. the smell stopped because the thing that was burning up finished burning up. i found both my fog lights not working a while after i changed the belt and when i dug into it the entire hid setup i had self destructed from the wires burning off of the bulbs and both ballasts being melted in the centers. i picked at the burnt rubber around the bulbs and it released the same exact smell i had been smelling.

ok, so i wasn't too far off with the headlight guess, LOL.. just needed to look further down

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  • 5 months later...
On 3/18/2021 at 11:04 PM, jonathan909 said:

This has been a persistent problem with my '99 OBW for years.  Every time I stopped and got out (after driving for a while) I'd get hit with that burning rubber smell.  Couldn't figure it out, drove me nuts.

Eventually I sussed that it was a leaky PS reservoir/pump that was pooling some fluid on the top of the block.  Once the block heated, it'd begin to smell.

I had this issue as well leaking out of the rack / pinion seals as it dripped when I was driving the wind pushed it back onto the exhaust. I just used to Power steering stop leak and it immediately fixed the problem.

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