Hello everyone,

I'm new here so please bear with me.

I've had my Mazda 3 for about a year now. Soon after I noticed a a smell coming from the outside of the car, almost as if someone had let one go. And no, It's not me, haha. All joking aside, I can't pinpoint where it's coming from.

At first I thought it's just a smell in the air, but it never went away.

It's a manual transmission if that makes any difference.

Have any of you noticed a similar problem?

 

it could be that your burning up your clutch...im teaching my younger sister who just got her permit to drive stick in my car and shes beating it up alittle bit...ive noticed a smell coming from the car too after shes driven it. but other than when shes driven it i havent noticed a thing.

 

well thats what i thought he was doing too, but he's been driving it for a year now so I think he would have learned how to drive it by then.... i hope haha. But thats always a possibility that you accidentally heated up your clutch a little too much thus causing a "foul smell". And yes, burning clutch is pretty smelly.... been there and done that!

 

Well I've been driving standard cars for 6 years, never had a problem with any other car except for the first one I ever owned. An old beater I used to learn to drive standard. I burnt and blew that clutch on that one.

The smell that the previous car gave off was almost like a burning fire.

The smell I'm getting this time is very foul, not like a fire, almost sulphurish. It seems to come around more when I have the heat on.

Maybe I'll just take it into the dealership and have them check it out.

 

whoa,

I think I know what your talking about. I have a 3i auto trans. and I get that smell too. SO a burning clutch is probably not the culprit. I thought it was just the parking garage that I parked at and thought nothing of it.
Please let us know what you find out at the dealership. I would be interested to know.

Thanks

 

Only two things on a car that can make a surphur-ish smell is the battery getting hot, or if you drive it hard (no problem if you like to), a smell coming from residual exhaust from getting the catalytic converter very hot.

 

If it's the stinky sulpher smell it's nothing to worry about. There is a coating inside the exhaust system that gives off the smell. There is nothing you can do about it. I had the same stench with my Nissan Sentra. You would be suprised how many cars have this now a days.

 

While I'm not sure what is causing the smell. I can give you an idea for making it smell better though. Set your AC to cycle the internal air. Take Fabreez/favorite cologne w/e and give a couple of sprays under the glove compartment area. This is where your internal register is located. Turn your fan up and let it cycle for a bit. Hopefully that will get the smell out for awhile. Of course if the problem is caused by some of the suggestions above it my come back, but at least it will make it more enjoyable to drive for awhile.

 

Maverick, that's funny the first thing I thought of when I read this was my old sentra, hahaha. My 3 is good though.

 

Some sulphur odor from exhaust not abnormal but if you feel it is excessive take to dealer and have them make sure the fuel trims are not too far into the rich side. There are a couple of things have run across so far that are make fuel trims abnormaly rich above 10-15%. Purge valve for evap system sticking open intermittently that draws fuel vapors from charcoal canister into the engine when it should not. This is quite common. The other more rare is a mass air flow sensor fault whereas the sensor is sending a signal to the PCM that more air is coming in to the engine then really is and PCM dumps in more fuel to compensate. Dealer will not usually respond to complaints of sulphur smell as it is considered normal but are more likely to investigate a little closer with a intermittent rough idle complaint which should point them into the same areas.