Smell of burning

[NightPHEVer]

There is of course a separate cooling fan for the batteries which - as far as understand it - will use 'air conditioned' cooled air if necessary. Presumably this level of cooling could be on occasion (charge mode?) needed by the batteries regardless of outside air temperature. Recently my air conditioning was low on gas (not sure where the gas went, but no leaks were detected - put it down to lack of use as the car had only done 3000 miles in 3 years) which presumably would mean that the batteries could not be cooled as much as they may require? My local main dealer didn't seem entirely aware of the fact that air conditioned air was available to the battery cooling fan if needed.

What would be the consequences if the batteries were not sufficiently cooled I wonder. Would they smell hot? It's a common occurance in the UK with cars that are fitted with air conditioning, for it to stop working after around 4 years due to lack of servicing, and therefore insufficient gas. If an air con fault is not dealt with promptly it will very likely cause seals to be damaged within the air con gubbins and expensive repairs to be needed. So very often as a result, it doesn't get fixed. The PHEV will inform you if there's an air con fault, the 'snowflake' symbol will flash on and off. Although maybe if you're not at the time enjoying hot weather it's not so immediately noticable as it would be if the system didn't blow icy cold when required. That's when I noticed that mine wasn't working properly and that was sometime before the snowflake symbol started to flash.

I haven't by the way ever noticed any hot electrical, or slipping clutch like smell from my PHEV. As I mentioned earlier did recently get the burning rubber though. 'Slipping clutch' smell could also be overheating brake pad smell as a result of siezed brake caliper. In the case of the PHEV it seems the rear brake caliper is most likely. Chances are there would be some smoke in evidence if the pads are getting that hot though, and would of course have no relationship to 'charge' mode.

 

[kheissi]

Sharing my experience.

I have 2016 model with almost 250 000km and I get the smell on short trips around the town when using cabin heater and the ICE kicks in. Currently weather is 0-5 degrees Celsius so it is quite cold. If I drive AC/cabin heater OFF, ICE stays off and no smell at all. I would describe the smell similar to seized brake caliber smell so it would make sense it is coming from the slipping "clutch". First I though it was a seized caliber but none of the pads or discs were hot. And the EV driving did not cause the smell so it can't be the brakes.

Snow is currently melting and the roads are wet and dirty so it could be also some dirt burning on the exhaust. Today we drove longer period in the town with the heater on and the smell was getting milder the longer we drove.

One thing to mention is that when the smell is the strongest (when ICE is cold) a lot of white smoke is coming out of the exhaust. When car is quickly parked and shut down there is white smoke coming somewhere behind front left wheel or under front left door. I have not investigated further yet as I have owned the car only 2 weeks.

So for me it is not related to the charge setting but to the AC/cabin heater at max and ICE.

 

[AndyInOz]

Coolant burns with white smoke.

If it is coming out of your tail pipe, this could be an indication of a serious problem, examples include a cracked head or a blown head gasket.

I recommend that you take your vehicle to a suitably qualified mechanic immediately.