Hey guys,

Lately I've been noticing a burning oil smell. It happens when ever I've been on the freeway, or driving the car hard. The car doesn't have any noticeable leaks, and it doesn't look like I'm loosing very much oil (oil consumption looks normal for this car). Everyonce in a while I'll notice some oil on the driveway, though the stain isn't very big, may be about as big as a half-dollar, or size of a tennis ball, but it's usually not that bad. Now anyone have an idea of what is going on? I had a an oil leak issue with my truck, and I despise having to get to the point where I add a quart of oil every week. Anyway when I opened the hood, the burning smell seem stronger on the firewall side of the engine then on the radiator side. Either way looks like I got a list of things to do now:
Timing Belt
Engine Mounts
Find where oil is leaking to cause burning smell
Replace battery probably
Struts
Accessory Belt,
Cooling system flush

Man, what else do I need to take care of...

Sarin

 

Sarin,

Check your valve covers...on both sides...these could be leaking due to being loose, or needing new gaskets. If it needs to gaskets, I'd wait until you have the timing belt done, and have that done at the same time.

I wrote more info on Charles' Yahoo club...

 

whats up kid. check it, I got the same problem as I speak.
this is the first time I see this problem in my engine. It also happens to be right after my oil change. So which means its the guys, who change the oil, fault. Anyway, what the problem seems to be is that a valve or the oil filter is not set properly which makes it leak very little. Since the oil filter is right next to the exhaust pipe or the "down pipe", oil leaks on top of that. Then when ya give the engine hard power, more oil is circulating faster which makes more of leak. The leaked oil happens to drop on top of the exhaust pipe, which gets very hot after hard use, and starts to burn up, causing a light steamy smoke and a funky smell. All this happens to be near the firewall of the engine, exactly where a part of the exhaust pipe and the oil filter can be found. So brotha, this is a theory that could be ya problem. So get that area checked for leaks and get the area cleaned from oil so it wont smell.

Peace.