01 Outback, want to buy it.. scared of burnt clutch/brakes odor under hood

Eli..... A lot of the info your want..and some you wont like..is right here in this forum. There are a lot of "issues" you need to be "Heads up" on...

Ooops.. my initial description should say burnt clutch/brakes smell.. not oil. Does not smell anything like oil.

If it smells sweet-ish, like toasted marshmallows, that would be coolant. However, I suspect there is a split boot on a half axle which has slung grease onto the exhaust. Of course, it could also be a plastic bag or 'road kill' or other debris cooking on the exhaust. If you suspect brakes/stuck caliper, compare the feel of heat from the wheels after driving and a dragging brake should be hottert han the other wheels.

Carl

I know you said "not oil", but remember that anything leaking out of the engine tends to fall onto the hot exhaust. Being baked on can make a different smell than being burnt. Our '99 Liberty has a small leak in the cam cover gasket which leaks small amounts of oil, and that makes a bad/hot smell. Take off the drip pan, and slide under with a torch - I bet you'll find something baking onto the exhaust.

Clifford Heath

I'm not sure of your location but here in the salt-belt, a lot of unscrupulous dealers will undercoat cars prior to selling them in order to hide any rust. This stuff smells when it burns off the exhaust, etc. Just a thought...

DS

I'm hoping you are British. We Americans use the word "torch" a little differently. On this side of the pond it's a "flashlight".

Crawling under the car to look for an oil leak with an American "torch" would definitely lead to bad hot/burnt smells if not worse.

No, he's Australian. The fact that he called his car a "Liberty" and not a "Legacy" is a dead giveaway :)

You got it!

And I shudda got it, I've been to enough Aussie Subaru websites to know better. At least the "this side of the pond" line still works ;}

Surprising that they call it Legacy actually. At least in the computer industry, the word means "old s*it that we're stuck with but no-one wants to work on it so it can't be fixed". Not a good connotation for a car branding, I woulda thunk. :-)

Subaru are not permitted to call it "Legacy" in Australia as there is a charity organisation here called Legacy. Ironically, Daimler Chrysler can't call the Jeep Liberty here by it's name, because of the conflict with Subaru Australia. So the new Jeep Liberty uses the old nameplate of Jeep Cherokee.

Confused ? Join the club :)

:)

Be>Losiho wrote: