Our Two Cents: Least Favorite Automotive Smells
A promise was made in our last installment of Our Two Cents, and today that promise is kept. It’s only natural to ponder the worst automotive smells after discussing the ones that most satisfy your nose. Sometimes you gotta take the bad with good, as cars are always a mixed blessing. It’s the contrast between the sweet aroma of certain gasolines and putrid 90-weight gear oil. Or the smell of a new car with a cheap interior versus one with really expensive bits and decadent leather trimmings.
So that’s how we kicked the question back to the staff here at Hagerty Media. Let’s see what are their least favorite automotive smells!
Interiors
“The VW Jetta (Mk IV) crayon smell in the interior: GROSS! Why? Because it’s just that unpleasant!” – Matt Tuccillo
“For me it was toxic new Hyundai smell from the 1990s. I wanted to enjoy seeing South Korean cars getting better and better (looking at you, Hyundai Scoupe) firsthand, so I’d try to check them out at the annual auto show. It took serious commitment to do so, even with the windows down. ” – Sajeev Mehta
“Faux leather that hasn’t finished off-gassing, a smell we recently experienced in a press car. Come on now, go cow or go home!” – Grace Houghton
Critters
“The smell of mouse encampments in spring after you so diligently tried to prevent them the previous autumn.”- Eddy Eckart
“The easy answer here is ancient rear differential oil. And it’s not just the stink, it’s that it seemingly never goes away, especially on clothing. However, there is not a single thing on earth that smells worse than cleaning rotten animal guts off the underside of a vehicle.
Thankfully, I have only had to do this twice. To clarify, I was not the one who ran over the already very much deceased animal in the middle of the road, but when that vehicle comes home to park in my driveway, I am the one that had to clean it!” – Ben Woodworth
Rental Cars
“Diesel exhaust. And most rental cars.” – Cameron Neveu
“And the backseat of every Uber.” – Sajeev Mehta
“Hey Sajeev, are we graduating this from smells to stains?” – Matt Tuccillo
“Oops, my bad. Ubers are bad because of the stains paired with the masking smells of car air fresheners. You can see the sins but you can’t quite smell them anymore.” – Sajeev Mehta
“We once had a Camaro convertible rental car in Colorado for a Barn Find Hunter shoot many years ago. (I got a convertible to shoot video from while wandering through the mountains). Had the top down when we got it at the airport. We put the top up when we stopped for lunch in Denver since we had some camera gear in there.
An hour or so in the hot, Colorado sun left us a nice surprise when we returned to the car. The thing smelled like vomit. Like, so bad the whole car may as well have been filled with vomit. It was awful. We quickly removed our things (while holding our breath), called the rental agency and told them to bring us a new car.”- Ben Woodworth
Cigarette Smoke
“I was a kid who grew up riding in the back seats of cars driven by cigarette-smoking adults, and that nauseating smell is unshakable because not only is it in the upholstery and carpeting and headliner, it quickly gets in your clothes and hair. These days, any time I get into a car that has been smoked in (which is not often, thankfully) I try to breathe through my mouth to avoid it.” – Stefan Lombard
Grab Bag
“Fire, for obvious reasons.” – Andrew Newton
“What about the smell of, “Huh, I wonder what that smell is? It’s probably fine.” – Ben Woodworth
“Trapped farts.” – Molly Jean
Gear Oil
“The answer is, obviously, diff oil. Sweaty gym sock filled with goose droppings, left overnight in a neglected bathhouse. Gives me chills just thinking about it.” – Eric Weiner
“Differential oil. Look at a picture of an axle draining diff: Can you smell it? I bet you can. Cam’s entry of diesel exhaust is up there too. I’m talking like an old indirect injected machine, that smell just gets in your clothes and takes a while to come out. Or a coal rolling tune on a bro dozer pickup. . .no thanks.” – Greg Ingold
Personally, I’ve always rather enjoyed that diff oil smell (for short periods of time). I’m surprised no-one has mentioned the rotten egg smell of early catalytic converters before they “seasoned”.
Not fond of Gear Lube soaking into my clothes, but I build a good many differentials and I must be the odd-man-out, but I’m just fine with that small. And if it’s really old Gear Lube, that’s fine too. It reminds me of the old days like when the car was actualy used and the gear lube “never” changed in the life of the car…(or truck).
Burnt diesel smells ok to me. Pumping fresh diesel, on the other hand…. And slightly off topic, the steering wheel of my 1982 Accord tasted terrible. Don’t ask.
Friction modifier for rear differential. Horrible.
The rotten-egg smell that comes from defective catalytic converters.
Brake fluid! With a bullet! I’m surprised that nobody mentioned old DOT 3 brake fluid (unless I missed it) as a horrible smell — it usally means you’re losing your brakes, and that’s terrifying! Happened to me twice, but it was the first time that I relate to an almost tragedy due to zilch brakes: 1963, Senior in HS, driving down the main drag of our little N CA town (also US 395), and I saw two kids crossing in a crosswalk ahead of me. I hit the brakes in plenty of time in my salvage ’51 Ford Tudor flathead, and… brake fluid smell, and strong!
The master cylinder, under the floorboards, had blown totally out, and I had no stopping power at all. Still going about 30 mph, I nearly panicked, and beause the parking brake on the rusty old bomb (a MI car, originally) would always stick when applied, I’d completely forgotten about using it — the resuts of which at speed might have been worse! I downshifted to second, and steered for all I was worth. They were just behind a car already stopped, progressing toward my outer lane, when I was (luck!) able to hug the curb and squeak through. I was so rattled that I negotiated two more intersection turns (no traffic encountered fortunately) when my frantic brain remembered the ignition, and the old flatmotor chugged to a stop. To serve as a lesson, it was at the curb in front of the local cop shop! I learned a lot more about brakes and their maintenance that next few days!
Repeat of the olfactory memory: 1971, Barcelona Spain, in a ’68 V-W bus touring Europe with my fiancée and three bros. Just entered town, on a boulevard with 8 or 10 lanes with lots of two way traffic, and the smell again, accompanied by a floored brake pedal. This time, experience paid off, and without alarming the gang, I brought the ‘bestelwagen’ to the curb just using the floor-lever parking brake. Safe! But, in the aftermath, I had to find an alley fence before I peed my Levis! It was a rusty (Amsterdam sourced bus) brake line to the front wheel cylinder, and we found one and were back on the road in a few hours. Cost mostly taxi rides to and from a parts store, and a new driver for the van for a while!
Sooo… when the car smell means peril, brake fluid takes the price in my book! Ole’ Wick
Worst worst worst. Wife and I received her dad’s car as a wedding present. He was a fisherman and had Advertently left fish behind the spare tire. It was some months later in Tucson when we opened the trunk. Wheeoe!!
Burned up starter motor!!!! I think it was among the first bad auto smells I encountered. Once you small….never forget.
Gear oil get’s my vote. I had the unplesant experience of pulling the gear pot out of a 58 GMC van in the middle of a hot summer Phoenix, Arizona day and gear oil drenched my hair when I loosed the bottom bolts on the pot. My gosh no matter how many times I washed my hair it stunk, My wife made me shave my head and scrubbed it daily for several days before she would let me use the pillow on the COUCH–no bed time.
Then there was the time I went fishing put a half dozen trout in the trunk and forgot about the untill the stench got into the cab in Las Vegas heat. I could not get it out no matter what I did. Took a beating on it, but that car had to go,
Chinese left over food left in the trunk of a car in 90-degree weather for a week. A friend of mine did that not me.
The stench of my first car after I ran over a skunk on the freeway. Couldn’t get rid of that stink. Burnt skunk on the exhaust system is thee worst!
I worked at an underground mine where we used “Dichloromethane ” – (the stench added to propane ) to clear out the mine if an emergency occurred. Break a bottle in front of the fans and when you smelled it – got the heck out. We had a Union dispute and someone left a full uncapped bottle in the Mine Managers rig over a hot 3 day weekend. Had to rip out all the interior but never really got the smell out.
Ethyl mercaptan is the odorant added to propane.
Blown heater core, dumping antifreeze onto passenger side carpeting ( took forever and a day of scrubbing to get rid of that smell) on my Corvette!!!
Took our daughters to the beach one summer in SoCal in my ’69 Grand Prix.
They found a couple star fish and when we left they were dashed on the trunk. Totally forgot about them for 4 or 5 days. When I opened the car I almost fell down. After truing to clean, had to leave the windows and trunk open for a week. Took a long time and lots of air freshner/Lysol until there was no more smell.
Uughhh!
PS: that ’69 GP was a great ride!
Adams Wheel Cleaner. So bad I keep it in a sealed container in my shed. Works great tho.