Is it a smoky smell or a sweeter smell like plastic? If u run over plastic trash, it will cling and melt to the exhaust.this is why I say lift the vehicle and check the exhaust. If it were an oil drip it wud smell like exhaust. Check for oil leaking around the filter if the belly pan is what u call the undercarriage splash guard.

 

Follow up :

So last weekend I removed the splash panel / belly pan and looked really close for leaks.
Quite a bit of engine oil but could not tell where it was coming from. There was quite a bit of oil on the driver's side below the motor, kind of the Steering Rack and a bit on a hose. Checked the hoses were tight on the Rack.

Not really conclusive of what was going on.
I degreased the bottom of the motor and everything under it.

Drove it all week hoping to see where leak is. I did smell it a little a couple of times.

Checked underneath today and there is no oil anywhere.

Put the splash panel / Belly pan back on as whatever is going on is obviously not a serious oil leak.

End of story for now.

 

Splashed on that cat.. wait what??

 

Yeh, plastic bag has been mentioned several times in this thread.

Wish I had a bag stuck to exhaust.

Glad you found yours.

 

Oddly enough I just purchased a used HKS exhaust system and there is a bag melted to the mid-pipe. I was thinking of hitting it with my grinding wheel because I don't want to add yet another stinky smell to my G. Anyone ever had any luck getting it off. It is no longer a plastic consistency. More like solid molded plastic!!!

 

A guess....Acetone.

 

You could always blast it lightly with a torch so it melts again and then scrape or wipe it off with something capable of handling heat without itself melting.

It's also likely that the exhaust itself will naturally heat up hot enough to melt that plastic to a point that it's malleable on its own, since it got there to begin with by melting the plastic (although it was thinner in bag form). So you might be able to just run it so the car is really hot, and then quickly throw it up on ramps while still running and try to scrape it off. Be real careful working on a hot car though, because you can seriously burn yourself on the converters and various other parts along the upper portion of the exhaust.

 

The HKS was not installed yet so I just hit it with a 120 grit flap disc on my 4 1/2" grinder. Took the plastic right off (and hopefully just a little metal). There was a little melted plastic smell at first but after a couple days it is gone.

Still get the "other" smell when I drive the car hard but it is an '03 with 125k miles and a few oil leaks so I suppose it is to be expected.

 

Well I bumped into an answer on another non-auto Forum.

I haven't tried this yet, maybe this weekend but the NISSAN wrench on this board is pretty sure this will be IT.

Maybe some of you all have already done this?

http://www.nissanmurano.org/forums/6...et-change.html

 

Oh yea that thing...

 

Doesn't seem likely to me only because you probably would have noticed your oil level getting low over the course of a typical oil change interval if this was leaking. Even if it was leaking, the dripping oil would have to drip onto something hot. With the location of our oil filter under the car, it would just drip onto the engine under-cover. The only way I see that burning is if it somehow splashes onto the exhaust headers/downpipe or some other part of the exhaust as you're driving due to wind splashing it backward.

Have you noticed your car being low on oil at all? It shouldn't be hard to just peek under your car and see if it's leaking.

I personally haven't heard of anyone having this specific problem on our cars at all yet, meaning a leaky component on the oil filter mounting point or cooler if there is one there.

 

Today I added the remainder of 1 additional quart of oil since oil change about 5K miles ago. About time for oil change now and I am going to replace that oil cooler gasket also. Maybe next weekend I can get to it.

Still stinking...!

 

So, a couple weeks ago I did an oil change and inspected the oil cooler and not a drop of oil anywhere. All is clean and now I have a new seal in the glove box as I saw no use to replace it.

I am guessing I am down to the valve covers having the typical small leak and dripping onto the exhaust.

I think I have been diligent in this investigation and I have no other conclusion.

DOMODOMO

I open the floor again to your constructive thoughts / experience.

Thanks

 

I've had an issue for several months now of what appears the head gasket having a slight oil leak that drips onto my headers. If my car sits for a few days then the smoke is bad enough for me to grab the fire extinguisher from behind my seat and hope I don't need it. WOT makes the smell worse too. Daily driving after about 10 minutes isn't an issue. I'd be interested to see where everyone else's leaks are coming from before I go and swap out all my gaskets

 

It's probably not your headgasket if it leaks when the car is off. Most likely it's the valve cover gaskets or the valve covers themselves deforming from heat and leaking around the gaskets. That's a very common problem on our cars because of the material that the valve covers are made out of.