Yesterday my wife and i were out running some errands, and all the sudden a strong hot glue smell came through the vents. ( Figuring it was a new(er) car with 40k we thought it was the old van in front of us.

Well, this morning the smell is still present, nowhere near as strong, but it is definitely coming from under our hood. Anyone with a toyota or scion experience this or have any insight ?

Fluids (Oil, Coolant, PS) all seem to be good, and clean.

 

Mine does that every now and again, usually after I have been driving the car for a while or running it hard. Its just one of those things that it does. Don't stress about it theres nothing wrong with the car.

 

If i had been running the car hard, i would have blown it off, but we were casual driving (i had my 8 week old daughter in the car) And actually sitting almost still when it came blowing through.

Periodically when i run the car "hard" i get the sulfur smell, but this is totally different, like a hot glue gun.

 

check to see if theres a plastic bag melted to the engine/exhaust anywhere

 

I don't know if I have ever experienced that. Like many others, after running it hard I can smell the clutch, probably like you said, the sulfur smell. ethan82000 thats a good point, it could be something you picked up off the road that melted onto your engine somewhere, or it may even be from just not using the hot air for a while. Has it been a while since you ran the hot air vents?

 

We have no clutch, it's auto (wifes car) ... it is possible we ran over a bag that got sucked up, but i have smelled burning plastic, and this is not that smell, this truly smells like a clean burning hot glue gun is plugged in.

As far as running the heat ... it's VA, we run heat one day, and AC the next

 

Couldn't tell ya then man, sorry about that. Unless the car has a LOT of miles on it, theres almost no chance that you are slipping/burning the clutch in the automatic trans. Who knows, it could be anything that got sucked up and started burning, not just a bag. I would check it out. Look around the intake manifold, and follow the exhaust tract just to see if there is anything wedged around the pipe anywhere. Most likely if it is something being burned on the outside, it's on the exhaust.

 

you are low on that special vtec fluid.