hi guys, my wife's car 99 es300 smells like burning plastic every time she turns heat on. It's cold hear in new england. recently I changed valve gaskets for front and rear. no leaking oil. I checked this forum but no luck. does anyone had or having same issues?

 

Could a bag have possibly melted onto the exhaust? Or some residue from oil or some chemical from when you were working on the valve cover gaskets fallen onto the exhaust causing the smell? When i first bought ym car there was an awful burning smell, turned out to be a plastic bag that melted into the exhaust pipe. lIt could also be that your rear main seal is leaking.

 

Check your coolant maybe? Mine was pretty old and my heater used to smell just like you described it whenever I turned it on , had my mechanic drain all my coolant out and put some new coolant in, smells gone~

 

I did changed front 2 cam seals and main but not rear main seal.

 

I did change water pump about 1.5 year ago, but i didn't drain complete coolant, I just refilled with new coolant after changing water pump. Only thing is, if coolant is the issue, every pipes are sealed can't smell the old coolant. If smells old coolant then doesn't pipes are leaking? I'm not sure!!

 

Remove the cabin filters and see if you can see something in there, or on the filters themselves.

I'm also not clear from your post, if that smell is only inside the cabin when the fan is on, or if you can smell it outside as well.

Phil

 

I can smell it very little at outside, mostly inside, only if I turn on the heater.

 

If that's the case than, try the cabin filter procedure that I suggested, and see if you can find anything.

If after removing the cabin filters, you can put a vacuume cleaner hose in the cabin filter cavity it will be even better. Maybe something will get sucked up.


Phil