smoke coming through air vents

Hi All,

took the Skip up to suffolk and back at the weekend, a round trip of about 400 miles and while it didnt miss a beat the whole way it seems to have gotten a little smokey.

I drove to work this morning and noticed a strange smell, a bit like treacle, while i was driving along. sometimes the car does have weird smells which go away quite quickly and often its just because of outside odours. this morning it lasted the whole way to work so i thought i'd whack the blower up to setting 4 to see if i could blow whatever it was through, and to my surprise a lot of smoke blew out of the middle dash vents right into my face!

the smoke didnt smell like burnt plastic, and didnt smell very oily either (i know what this smells like from when my gearbox was holed and blew gearbox oil all over the hot engine block and then blew it into the cabin).

the smoke cleared after a few seconds but the smell was still there - when i arrived at work i left the engine running and popped the bonnet, there was no visible smoke coming from the engine or the exhaust, the water temp was fine, oil level was fine and i'm at a bit of a loss.

does anyone have any suggestions? i always have the blower on setting 1 to keep air circulating so assumed it wasnt due to the fans not being used.

two further things to mention:

1. car does NOT have a/c (just normal fan blowers)
2. the recent MOT advisory sheet did include 1 item 'oil leak' - there was no more info on where/how much although it doesnt drip out the bottom or it would have left marks on my drive and i couldnt see on on inspection - i put this down to having a weepy rocker cover seal - could this be the cause?

thanks for your time

DKM

catastrophe!

the heater matrix is knackered, its blowing oil and hot water through the vents as well as foul smelling smoke/water vapour. little sod.

I had to abort a trip to buy a Lada Riva earlier as i was terrified it would burst and give me a 90 degree foot, face and hand wash and now have to drive my other half's skoda fabia until i can get it fixed. had a look in haynes and its a 5 spanner job so will have to leave it to the pros i'm afriad.

anyone have any idea on how long this might take a professional to do, and therefore how much? i know the part is £26 from Euro Car Parts but it looks VERY labour intensive.

i only got the MOT a week ago!

DKM

sorry mate but its dash out to do

thought as much!

thanks for the input tho TowcesterVAG - would bypassing the matrix using copper pipe and Jubille clips work until i can save up my pocket money to get it fixed properly work?

obviosly there would be no hot air, and it would keep dripping until the matrix dries out completely...

DKM

Well, on the flipside, at least it stopped you buying possibly one of the worse cars ever made! ;)

I've done dash out jobs before, so I don't envy you. Good luck with it, hope it doesn't give you too much grief

i was going to buy the lada as a project because the golf had been so well behaved recently i had run out of jobs to do on it! it even sailed through the MOT without a hitch.

serves me right i suppose :D

you can by pass if reqd to get you out of trouble

in case anyone else is interested you need 20mm pipe to join the two ends of the silicon hoses when they are detached from the heater matrix on the engine side of the bulkhead

I removed the pipes after draining the top of the engine of coolant yesterday (which came out brown and smelled vile) and tried to use one silicon pipe to bypss the HM but it has to bend 180 degrees and ends up kinked.

I am going to use both pipes and leave them connected on the engine side and join them with 20mm copper pipe at the ends which would normally go into and out of the heater matrix. i'm going to try 8 inches of copper pipe to give 4 inches each side of the join to withstand the pressure. i will secure them with the clamps already attached to the coolant pipes and jubilee clips to be extra safe

i will keep you all updated as to whether this works

DKM