I have a 2003 maxima 6spd. Whenever i put the car under hard acceleration wether it be from a dead stop or rolling down the highway i get this burning kind of smell. Its hard to tell what the smell is or the cause. During normal driving i never smell anything. The car has 70k miles on it. I bought the car with 50k miles on it and it started shortly after that. Anyone have any ideas on what it could be? or ever experienced this?

Oh yeah and i dont have any issues with slipping clutch or brakes so its not those..

 

Did you look under the car at the exhaust?

Dead rodent stuck against the exhaust?

Dragging brakes? See if any rotors are alot hotter than any others after a drive. Use an infrared heat gun, not your finger.

 

yeah no dead rodents here. the smell only comes after hard acceleration. not sure how the previous owner drove the vehicle. maybe the cats stopped up. im gonna get under the hood and the car this weekend and get to figuring it out.

 

Could be a slightly slipping clutch.

 

I think it's your cat. Does it smell like rotten eggs at all?

 

It's the cat, mine does it sometimes after hard acceleration and it is not the first vehicle I have owned that does that, pretty common if you ask me.

 

yeah im thinking its the cat. it does have that distinct smell although its not as strong as ive smelled before. ehh i did need to upgrade anyways.

 

Yea my auto 5.5 gen with 73k miles on it smells like something is burning sometimes, but only when I really rip on it, which isn't too often. I'm not really too worried about it.

 

check that you don't have a plastic bag melted onto exhaust

 

That's funny...but possible I guess. You do see those random plastic bags floating around the highway sometimes.

 

Plastic bag happened to me....I couldn't figure out what the hell the smell was for weeks and then I found the remnants of a plastic bag melted to my B-pipe.

 

!!!!!! I have the same problem, but never posted about it. I have it with this car and with my 2001 auto that I had. I was never really worried about it. People are saying it's the cat... as long as we're not getting an SES light though, we should be ok right?

 

Yup! Been there, done that.......took me a week...damn thing wrapped up over my exhaust and couldn't really see it from just kneeling down there....

 

Hmmm...I wonder if it may be the belt slipping?

 

me too i couldn't get it off it smelt for like a month but anyway it's probably the cat I have the same problem mine smells like rotten eggs when I'm rippin up a highway on ramp... got to merge at highway speeds lol

 

I thought my auto transmission was burning up...strange thing is I only notice it on one particular on ramp where you need to merge to really fast traffic...

 

Has anyone looked further into this issue? I read on the 6th gen forums that it could be from sulfur rich gas. Can anyone confirm that the cats are the issue?

 

but i'm still interested in any possible causes/solutions

 

Plastic Bag, rodent, blown cat, slipping belts are all possible if its sulfur smell than is the cat

 

No new mods?

My cattman muffler makes the new AE lip smoke if the car idles for a long time.

 

huh? too much heat?

 

Yo skidz about that rotten egg smell. My GFs been sayin she smells that all the time, Im like "Your lost". Could she really be onto something?

 

I smell the rotten eggs smell whenever I push the maxie over 4k rpm. Can anyone confirm that this is a cat issue?

 

lol this happened to me last month. Who would have thought a melted plastic bag on the exhaust would STINK that much?? I even smelled it in the cabin area. I have cattman headers, so the bag got hooked on the skid plate

 

No,the pipes barely clear the lip.After some adjustment it should be fine.

 

have the same prob with my 06 im gonna get a hi flo cat ill let you know if that gets rid of the smell

 

Way to bump an 11 month old thread

 

I just wanted to bump this almost 2 year old thread to tell everybody on here that I sometimes experience this burning smell after hard acceleration in my 07 SE.
It's been great bumping this thread.

 

don't feel bad bumping this thread, i'm smelling the same thing, its coming into the interior with all vents closed. same as mostly every one else merging to freeway speeds. On top of that I'm also hearing a lower end rattling in the engine, while casual driving in lower rmp ranges. my 89 SE 5 speed was much less problems than this 5.5.

 

burning smell after acceleration??

 

The smell of rotten eggs is fine, just pushing the rpm too much. I know on my Max after replacing the cat with test pipes the rotten egg smell went away but it now smells like burning plastic
I driven my moms lexus when it was new and only have 3,000 miles and decided to "play" with it a bit right after i parked the car i could smell the rotten egg smell.