My GX460 (2000 miles) has an odor after driving it from the rear. Smells like burnt rubber. Normal? I notice it mostly when I pull into the garage.

 

Given that you are from Mass., my guess is that it's related to wet roads and/or road treatment salts and the like. My '96 Land Cruiser has it, and it's more common with the older models that have less plastics/aprons and other protective materials. I'm not sure exactly what the root cause is, but something from the wet/snowy road gets onto the exhaust and/or catalytic converter, and as this debris burns off from the heat of the exhaust, it gives off the smell.

It's difficult to confirm this with 100% certainty, but you can try and compare times when you sense the smell now, and see if maybe in the summer you do not smell it anymore.

 

It's most likely that it is so new. I have read here that there are coatings, treatments, etc that are on the car that need to "burn off" in the first few months & they can cause an odor. I know that I have had some odd smells come from my truck (1722 miles so far), but they were short lived & eventually went away.

 

I agree

 

A) I've owned it for 6 months and 8000 miles so I would thought that initial coatings would be burned off by now and the odor, when I pull in my garage, would have dissipated. It has not.

B) I've seen reference to odd odors from GX catalytic converters. My bet is... that's what I'm smelling. I don't know much more about that topic tho. I guess I'm just trying to determine if this is "normal" - and I should not worry about it -- or -- if there's something wrong with the vehicle.

C) I smelled it from Day One (acquired the car over the summer) so during all different temp/weather. So I don't think it's wet/snow/road treatments, etc.

I have not asked the dealer about it - yet.

 

The catalytic converter on my 2006 V8 4Runner was subject to a TSB because whenever you accelerated, you got a very strong rotten egg odor, especially if you had the rear hatch window rolled down. Even after the TSB was performed, the truck still has an odor when accelerating & it now has 110k miles on it.

I don't know if the issue is the same, but it's certainly in the realm of possibility.