Everyone loves the smell of a new car. Someway the leather and plastic blend together to make an appealing fragrance. Not surprisingly, as soon as the smell fades, many of us get air fresheners that make our car smell fruity or musky. And that is okay, everyone finds distinct aromas appealing. But precisely what will you do when you start smelling things that you never smelled before. In this article, we will take a look at just what certain smells could signify for your vehicle.
One smell you could possibly run into is something that smells sickly sweet. More often than not this is the result of a leak in your coolant system. Despite the fact this may be a tiny leak, it is something you will want to get fixed right away before it causes other troubles. One further thing you might notice is that this smell is really strong. This strong smell indicates the heater core is dripping. Just as before this is something to have fixed immediately as the fumes are not good for you to be breathing in and the lack of coolant can lead to other issues.
Some people will realize that when they are in the car they can smell the exhaust. It isn’t really normal and often indicates that you have a problem somewhere in your exhaust system. If the smell is very noticeable, it could mean that you have got openings in the floorboard due to rust or the doors are not sealing very well. Smelling the exhaust is not good for your wellbeing at all so you will need to have this checked and fixed at once.
Some time back, I went to fill my vehicle up with gas and when I left the station, I still smelled gasoline. I didn’t think much about it in the beginning however the next day when I got in my car I could still smell the gas. It turned out that I had developed a leak on the topside section of my fuel tank. This is probably the most dangerous smell since just about any trigger could blow up the whole car and kill someone. Therefore there’s no reason to go into detail about your car catching on fire. So bottom line, when you smell gas in your car, get it checked by a mechanic without delay.
As a final point, you may encounter a decaying egg odor. If that is the case, you probably have an problem where the catalytic converter is clogged. It is not inevitably dangerous to your health but it could result in some damage to your car if it’s not taken care of in a timely manner. So you will also want to get this fixed as early as you can.
Obviously you could invariably end up detecting other things. Bear in mind this is your car and so if you smell something unusual there is probably something wrong and you should get it to the shop.