Coolant smell?!?!

Hello recently I've noticed after driving I can smell a coolant smell coming from the engine area. There is no coolant leaking that I can notice. Is this normal on the wrx?

 

Smelling coolant generally isn't normal of any car.

 

You're probably leaking. Happened to me last spring and turns out I have a cracked radiator hose. Check the hosing on the radiator and the connections before you get stuck needing a tow like I did lol

 

I'm hoping that if he said that he didn't have any leaks, then he checked his radiator hoses. Maybe not though...

 

I checked mine too and visibly couldn't see anything. It was a tiny ass little crack that did it in when I got it fixed

 

Ugh...seems to be how it always works, right? Either that or you have a problem that can't be replicated when you bring it in! Either way, OP should definitely check his radiator hoses though.

 

Any recent modifications?

 

no its all stock i can smell it up front through the hood

 

Check your coolant line from your turbo, you should be able to see the return from the bottom of the vehicle. I had an issue with the stock clip allowing a little fluid to leak. I am assuming you have checked your oil and coolant level to see if there is any mixing or if a large amount is missing.
Try running your car for 10 or so minutes and see if you have a small pile or where it is leaking from.

 

Is there any coolant under the hood on maybe the radiator or serpentine belt? I had the smell of coolant and no visible leaks and it ended up being my radiator cap was shot.

 

That's what I did one time, I put a white paper towel under my engine to see where the drops are coming from

 

Did you take off the brush/rock shield off from under the car to check for leaks?? Those can catch alot of oil and other fluids. Check your hoses as people are saying, you could be leaking small amounts onto your headers and thus burning up and creating the smell, or thats my guess. Do you see any smoke coming from under there at all?

 

Didn't want to make a new thread for what's (hopefully) a common issue. I took the wife to work and back this morning and came home to a cloud of white smoke under the hood. I have noticed it in the past but it was much more noticeable/worse today for some reason (at one point I could see it in the passenger mirror rolling around the side of the car). Car seems to run normal and I've never had a head gasket fail so I'm not sure what kinda symptoms you get during that.

Anywho, I can see a small puddle of coolant on top of the right side head. I've seen that for a little while and assumed that it was just that stuff boiling or burning off when the motor gets warm enough. However, the smoke seemed to be coming from everywhere on that side of the motor, or else there was just a lot more this time. I tried taking a pic of the little coolant pool but there's so much stuff in the way the camera can't get a good focus. So where I'm pointing in is where the pool is.

Perhaps it's landing on some other surfaces, too?

Edit* - Also noticed that the fans weren't running constantly like they normally seem to, with or without the defrost on, and I even had the defrost on this morning. I let it idle a little when I got home and they would kick on for about 5 seconds and shut off, but car never ran hotter than normal.





Thanks for any help.

 

Got a pic of the pool after the smoke cleared. Not sure why the pic got rotated this time (should be turned 90* left) , but here's what I got:

 

Mine did that when the bottom side of the upper hose was leaking.

 

I had a small coolant leak on the engine side of the upper hose and it would run down the timing cover and on to the exhaust. Just needed a little tightening. Didn't steam up that much though.