Top Reasons Your Car Stinks

Associated smell: acrid

Harsh, acrid smells typically mean that either brake or clutch material has been burnt. Riding your brakes or leaving the parking brake on are both great ways to make your car smell like this. Of course, a stuck caliper or frozen parking brake cable can also do the job for you.

A burnt clutch smells very similar to brake pads that got too hot, and it can be caused by riding the clutch. It can also mean that your clutch is slipping, either because it’s worn or because it needs to be adjusted. In systems with hydraulic clutches, a slipping clutch can also indicate a problem with the hydraulic system.

If it’s more of a burning rubber smell, then you might want to do less peel outs.

Associated smell: sweet

Antifreeze smells sweet. It smells so sweet, in fact, that it has to include a bittering agent by law. This is to help prevent animals and children from drinking what smells like a delicious treat.

If you smell something cloyingly sweet in your car, and you’re pretty sure that you didn’t accidentally dump maple syrup down your heating vents, then you’re probably smelling antifreeze. It’s probably the heater core if you smell it strongly inside the car, and if you notice a filmy fog form on the windshield when the heater is on, that’s another hint.

Also, if there is antifreeze on the floor inside your car, that is another good clue. If you can’t afford to fix it, bypass the leaky core and check out some car heater alternatives.

Associated smell: musty

A moldy or mildewy smell indicates that water is getting in your car and then pooling there. Leaky door or window seals can allow water in, so if you find wet seats or carpeting, then that’s probably the issue.

However, the A/C evaporator is a very common cause of this particular odor.

Associated smell: burning oil

When oil drips on any part of the exhaust system, it burns. This smells really bad, and it can also create copious amounts of thick, blue smoke if the leak is bad enough. The fix is simple enough: get rid of the leak. Your driveway will also thank you.

Associated smell: sulfur

Catalytic converters are emissions control components that alter exhaust gasses to reduce harmful emissions. When they don’t work right, you sometimes end up altering exhaust gasses to smell like someone spent most of last week throwing rotten eggs at your car. The fix is to replace the catalytic converter and also repair whatever caused it to fail, assuming it didn’t just wear out.

Some lubricants that are used in manual transmissions and transfer cases can also smell like sulfur as they age, which you may notice if they start leaking all over the place. If that’s the problem you’re dealing with, you’ll want to change the lubricant out and figure out where the leak is coming from.

Associated smell: aromatic hydrocarbons (raw gas)

If you smell a strong gas odor coming from your car, chances are pretty good that something has gone very, very wrong. Some amount of gas smell is okay, especially if your car is carbureted, but fuel injected vehicles typically shouldn’t smell strongly of gas.

Leaky fuel lines, stuck injectors, bad fuel pressure regulators, and a host of other issues can all lead to fuel leaks or dump enough gas into the engine to cause a smell. In any case, it’s usually a good idea to track down the source of the leak sooner rather than later.

Associated smell: death

Most of the reasons a car can smell have to do with some kind of mechanical breakdown or failure, but there are a lot of outside sources as well. So before you take your car into your favorite mechanic to ask why it smells like death in there, make sure to check under the seats.

After that, you can take some measures to fix your bad car smell.