Least favorite automotive smell

Mine is 75/90 when it's been burned, well fresh smells like crap too...

GO...

Yeah, top is definitely those sulphurous lubes, 2nd is the smell of letting the smoke out of electrical components.

Yep, gear oil is the winner. That E36 M3 is just nasty, and if you get it on your clothes, throw them away. You can wash them over and over and it will somehow magically retain the smell. Although the sudden smell of coolant while you're driving out in the middle of nowhere is never a good one.

yeah I changed out about 10 gallons worth on my Stryker yesterday,I had some gloves that were nice well they got put with the hazmat stuff.

Drum air brakes on fire.

Original Gear oil in a 135,000 mile S10.

Burned clutch is right up there though

VW leather interiors.

Burning antifreeze. Whether it's from a blown head gasket or after a crash, it is the worst automotive smell I can think of.

+1 on used conventional 90W gear oil. i'll second the burned clutch and the burnt PCB too.

Car fire FTW.

The answer is always Miata!

The smell of burning rubber, when disassembling a car with a torch.

rotting kids formula left in a bottle under the backseat of a minivan for like 6 weeks.

Gasoline or hot coolant, especially if its a vehicle that i own.

Gear Oil FTW. Had a neighbor spill a 5 gallon bucket in the back seat of his jetta.... I it may have accidentally ended up like that poor miata pictured above

walterj wrote: Yeah, top is definitely those sulphurous lubes, 2nd is the smell of letting the smoke out of electrical components.

I will second letting the smoke out of the wires.. especially if it is old smoke and kind of stale after a few decades

Brake fluid. After doing about 17 clutch master cylinder changes on a third gen F-body, I really started to despise the smell of that stuff (it meant work!)

After that...dead mouse/snake smell in the same car as above since it's been sitting in a field for years.

Gear oil also gets my vote...but then again, some of the smells coming from cars that show up at a friend's shop are nothing short of a nostril burning aromatic assault. You have to wonder how people get their interiors to smell so bad!

I hate cracking the tranny off the motor on cars with organic clutches. Oh god the stench.

It's a tossup between burned clutch and electrical smoke. Gear oil is a close second.

I had a friend accidentally leave a fish in the trunk over a weekend in the summer in Texas. Had to sell the car.

Interiors each have their own, er, 'flavor'. the worst one I have EVER smelled was an Escort full of baskets of dirty clothes. AAAAUUUUGGGH. It was AWFUL.

As far as lubricants etc we had a Dodge truck come in with a rear axle which literally got roasted, the guy drove it ~200 miles with bad diff bearings. It got so hot the paint had come off of the diff housing. When the rear cover was removed, the stink permeated the shop, all the technicians opened the rollup doors and went outside. It drifted upstairs to the GM's office, he came down asking what the nasty smell was. The next day it could still be smelt a little in the service drive.

On a trip to Maine one summer, a friend and I stopped at a roadside place and got huge lobster rolls to go.

When we arrived in Portland, we parked in a commuter lot and took a boat out to an island for a couple of days.

When we got back, we opened up the car and found that an entire lobster claw had fallen between the seats and then the car sat in the hot summer sun for two days.

It took several weeks to get rid of the smell of rotten seafood.

Gear oil is up there... especially when you spilled it in the back of your car... in the middle of Summer...

A close second would be old shock oil... when you're screwing around with an old strut... and slam it into the pavement... and it spews shock oil all over you...

I did some really stupid things when I was young...

burnt gear oil is the worst smell ever!!!

Just dropped the fuel tank on a 1st gen RX-7 and the contents were a cross between varnish and upchuck. My brother got a face full and almost added to the aroma.