Rubber burning smell

nissanuser1

Own a 2016 Nissan Altima with 13k miles. Recently, after driving for 10 minutes or more I smell rubber burning. Have no clue where it is coming from but definitely it is somewhere under the hood. Took the car to the dealer and they showed me a big plastic sheet that they found under the car. Surely that is not true because I drive in a clean neighbourhood. I think they just came up with the idea as they could not figure out where the rubber burning smell was coming from.
Do anyone have the same issue.
The smell could also be noticed in the cabin when heating is turned on.

thecardoc3

Is the odor gone or starting to diminish?

Eddie94

@nissanuser1 did u ever figure out what was wrong with it? I am having same issue 

PF_Flyer

Eddie94 said:

@nissanuser1 did u ever figure out what was wrong with it? I am having same issue 

@Eddie94 How many miles on yor Altima? Would you describe the small as burning rubber, or more like a "hot" smell? Any recent work/repairs on your car?

Eddie94

I’m currently at 70xxx @PF_Flyer Whenever I start car and leave after a few minutes it smells like burning plastic or rubber. When I’m at stoplights it also smells the worst. When I pop the hood it smells more on drivers side of engine bay. I’ve looked for leaks and smoke but haven’t seen anything. Only work done to it was new air/fuel ratio sensor installed by dealer and all oil changes done by dealer 

Mr_Shiftright

I would suspect an oil drip onto some hot part of the exhaust.

PF_Flyer

There is a lot of junk on the road. Could be that some small piece of plastic (like part of a plastic bottle) has gotten wedged against a hot part of the engine like the manifold. Smelling worse at stoplights kind of makes sense since you don't have air moving across the engine to dissipate the smell. Could be a very small piece of junk that's not getting hot enough to burn, just enough to smolder and stink.

If it was something like a fluid leak, I would think there was a good chance you'd see smoke/steam. Myself, I'd wait until the engine was cold and poke around all the nooks and crannies I could, especially near the exhaust system. If that didn't show anything, I'd start the car, leave the hood up and let it come up to operating temperature to see if I could narrow down where I should be looking.

I think it's unlikely that this is a "problem", at least until I exhausted all the probable simple causes.

Something plastic/rubber is up against something hot. Just have to pin it down!