Burning Hair Smell

[madderhatter]

Any ideas on this one ? Occasionally when driving I get a smell of burning hair coming into the cabin, through the vents the best I can tell. Right now I "think" it's only doing it when the heat is on. When the A/C is on it switches over to recirculate but with the heat it's on outside air by default, so it could possibly be there in A/C mode if I took it out of recirculate.

It doesn't do it all the time, the car is an automatic, engine isn't overheating, everything seems normal. It almost smells like some critter got on the headers or something real hot but I can't see anything up under the hood or obviously on the headers.

Thanks for any input ! I haven't put the car on a lift to get a close look but again it doesn't do it all the time.

[68stang289]

A/C compressor going bad?

[madderhatter]

Nah, blows ice cold and no unusual noises or actions from anything under hood.

[Tally TransAm]

run over any hookers recently?

[madderhatter]

Not that I remember, recently. AT's are pretty much sealed, right ? Meaning if it could be anything in there you wouldn't be able to smell it outside ? I know what burning clutch plates smell like on a manual ...

[Tally TransAm]

if you smell it through the vents when it is pulling in air from outside, you should also be able to smell it from outside the car near the rear of the hood

does your car stay outside, if so you may wanna pull the trim on the cowl and see if something died or left a nest in there. do you have a cabin filter?

[madderhatter]

if you smell it through the vents when it is pulling in air from outside, you should also be able to smell it from outside the car near the rear of the hood

does your car stay outside, if so you may wanna pull the trim on the cowl and see if something died or left a nest in there. do you have a cabin filter?
When I smell it the smell lasts for probably 15-20 seconds then it's gone.

Yep, the car is outside under a carport. Is there anything up under the cowl vents that could get hot enough to cause burnt hair (if something is up under there) ? I know the heater hoses might be in reach but not sure what else.

[Slush]

I've run over a plastic bag and it attached itself to my h-pipe and it melted. It did what you described, except smelled like burning plastic....run over any animals?

q

[madderhatter]

I've run over a plastic bag and it attached itself to my h-pipe and it melted. It did what you described, except smelled like burning plastic....run over any animals?

q

No animals. I did pop the hood one day and saw where some animal had chewed away at the firewall insulation and made a nest on top of the intake runners but got all of that removed, haven't seen any more in that location since.