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
I had made a quart of garlic soup for a friend who wasn’t feeling well and it spilled all over the backseat. of my BMW 2002. On another occasion a big plastic bag of chicken manure (for my garden) spilled all over the trunk. You couldn’t get in the car on a damp or rainy day. I sold it on a bright sunny day. I’m sure the new owners were startled the first humid day!
I’ve got two here. Was doing a lot of street racing one night in my 69 Corvette. 427 3 deuces 4 speed with Chrome side pipes. Picked up my buddy from a bar and he had me stop, opened the passenger door and threw up on the side pipes. It started cooking like you cracked an egg on a very hot skillet. Not sure I could describe that smell. Also had a new 76 TransAm that I used to back in the garage. The rotten egg smell from the catalytic convertor was intense after a long drive. Took it to a friends exhaust shop and he put on “test pipes” Cured the problem, and the engine ran so much better.
I had unguarded pipes on my 74, always had to warn my passengers with polyester pants. it was not a
pleasant smell !!!
Spilled milk in the back of my wife’s escort station wagon after a few days.
Burnt clutch, came home 1 day and this wierd smell outside my garage door… what the..:
Open the door to see my F350 duality,,, oh fxxxx, the smell of a totally smoked clutch, seem the wife needed to back the truck out to get her car out… living on a 17+% hill even with the granny ratio it must have been a sight to see.. glad I wasn’t watching. Somehow that clutch lasted years more.
I drive the canyons around Calabasas and Malibu California. Going around a curve and a coyote runs across my path a disappears under my car. I hear a thump and see him running away. No big deal. When I got home and parked in my garage, I start to experience a horrible odor. I looked under my car and saw what looked like an Indian scalp. Apparently I had scraped the coyote’s skull and luckily for him he escaped with his life. Worst part was hosing off the differential and airing out the garage for two days.
Many years ago, a cattle farm a few miles down the road from where we lived had a liquid manure handling system. The holding tanks were emptied several times a year and used for fertilizer in nearby farm fields. The equipment for hauling the liquid manure always leaked, and over the course of the day the manure would begin building up on the roadway. (Very little traffic on this particular road back then)
Anyway, our family was heading into town to do some shopping as it was getting dark outside. Dad was driving when all I heard him say was “What the hell is that” and the car suddenly raised up slightly and began sliding at a 45 degree angle. He regained control of the car, but then quickly realized what he slid across. The entire underside of the car was packed with paste-like cow manure, including the muffler and exhaust system. The word “Stink” doesn’t even begin to describe how bad the car smelled. He took the car to every car wash in town that offered under-body flushes, but nothing seemed to help. Every time the exhaust system heated up, the car would smell like a manure spreader! Dad was totally embarrassed to drive the car anywhere, and it took at least six months or so before the smell finally subsided.
Limburger cheese on an exhaust header.
While waiting in line for practice at Watkins Glen in 1973, I watched a mechanic open the hood of the race car beside me. He said he heard a “ticking” sound but once the hood was up, he reached into his pocket and grabbed a lump of something and mashed it down onto the exhaust header. Once we were flagged out onto the track, it didn’t take long for the wafting smell of the melting cheese to follow the poor guy’s car like a vapor trail.
sadly, all of us behind him had to smell it too.
The drive soon paid a visit to the pit lane and relieved us of the stench.
On my way past the pits, on the next lap, I noticed his hood was up and NO ONE was close to the engine.
Today at the DIY car wash the stall smelled like someone peed in one of the corners. Hope they got caught on camera.
Can’t stand the stench of gasoline exhaust when some know-it-all bozo street racer in front bypassed his catalytic converter.
90 weight gear oil in the differential that had that pound of hamburger meat added to quiet things down.
Gear oil is pretty bad, but I rarely need to smell it unless adding it (80-90 and 140 both) to my old Allis-Chalmers WD. Sadly, I have to smell diesel exhaust quite often while driving, and also when running my newer JD tractor. The smell of liquid diesel fuel is not so great either, especially as compared to gasoline. And yes, stale cig (or worse, cigar) smoke is bad, too.
1970’s emission equipment related run on, where after turning off the ignition the car would sputter, knock and choke itself off always producing a foul exhaust odor.
Smells would always exasperate my motion sickness.
The scented cardboard pine tree that dangled from the rear view mirror was probably my first nauseating experience.
Then came the bus rides on the city bus, having a unique off gassing heavy vinyl seats and rugged flooring. Early Flxible electric trolleys which would jerk and jut, then later came the non-air conditioned diesels.
Long summer trips as a kid with my brother “Toiletbreath” and my other stinky brother with no air conditioning. Uggghhhh.
That smell you get when you “let the smoke out” of the circuit you are sure was open!
How about cruising down the freeway and start smelling something absolutely awful, and looking at your passenger thinking that he must have some sort of gastric distress because you know you didn’t do it only have the aroma get worse and worse until you have to speak up and ask him if he’s alright only to have him ask you the same thing . This all takes place in around 45 seconds, and that’s when you pass that 18 wheeler that’s hauling dead fowl from the turkey ranch you passed a few miles back. Words cannot begin to describe that smell. And I for one will never forget the smell of Union 76 motor oil right out of the cardboard can. They must have used most of the world’s sulfur output in that stuff.