Hi!

I'm new to these forums, but from what I see I think someone may be able to help me out.

I have a 2003 S-Type with 101,000 km, bought a little over 2 years ago with around 60,000km.

Overall, I love the car, love the looks it gets, and I love its ride and performance.

I have had a few small issues and 1 major issue (transmission) but for the most part it has been very reliable.

I live in Montreal, I park outside and the weather here stinks. I regularly have to put the front windshield defroster on for at least 15 to 20 minutes before I can see out. I have the heated windshield, but wouldn't you know it - the lines in front of the driver are no longer functioning!

I was able to use the defrosters for as long as I needed before, but now my current problem is that after 10 to 20 minutes of using the defroster I start to get a burning smell, and if I don't turn off the defroster to let it 'cool down' I start to get smoke coming out of the vent in front of the windshield.

I will get the smoke coming out of the dashboard vents if I switch the defroster to regular heat once I get the smoke.

Since I don't want my car to catch fire, I have been shutting off the heat (in spite of freezing outside temperatures) to let the system (or whatever part of it that is overheating) cool down.

Excuse this long post, but I wanted to explain the situation as clearly as possible.

Any ideas what could be causing this?

Thanks for any help!

 

What engine?

Also, what kind of burning smell? Oil? Rubber? Dust? Or...?

 

My engine is the 3.0 - the car is the standard 4-door sedan

I am not sure exactly what the smell is - maybe more like rubber or plastic.

 

Are you 100% certain nothing has fallen down the vents?

I had an Audi that made a ridiculous grinding sound when the HVAC system was on it. Turns out, a previous owner's kid (I'm assuming) had stuffed a half eaten packet of fruit snacks into one of the vents, and it had made its way down to the blower motor's fan and was flapping like a playing card in bicycle spokes whenever the blower motor came on.

Take care,

George

 

IMT O-rings.

Cheap, if not necessarily "easy" fix if you have to work out on the street. I'd be very surprised to find it is anything else. Problem worse at idle than if you are driving, and hardly any smell/smoke or none after 10 mins at highway speeds?

 

Oh wow good call. I didn't even think of that. I've never seen them actually draw smoke into the hvac system. Burnt oil smell yes. Actual smoke no.

Look for Joycesjag's thread on checking your IMT-O Rings.

Take care,

George

 

LOL George...you musta not let yours get as bad as my ladies....

Reports trickled in from Louisiana where my daughter is in university of "burning oil smell" (she knows this one from my Gr. Marquis:-)) but her room-mate's boyfriend conducted complete oil, fluids, and condition check and pronounced everthing "good"...I was tempted to have her ask him how the xmsn fluid was looking....teehee
and that drove me out of the x300 section over here to antagonize you S-Typers. When she brought it home for Christmas...I had it out fueling and generally check-riding and yes...indeed! at idle, I was getting smoke out the panel vents.

 

Thank you all for your replies.

Unfortunately, I don't think that we've found the problem yet.

There is nothing that fell down the vent - I never put anything on top of the dash and I am the only driver of the car.

The smell is not that of burning oil - it is much more of a burning plastic or burning rubber smell.

Also, I will have to see if it is worse at idle - so far I don't think so - the first time it happenned, it was smoking pretty bad as I was driving my son to school so I turned off the heating system and opened the window and the smoke stopped coming out of the vent.

I later (10 minutes or so) turned the heat back on - it's damned cold here (-15C or about 2F) to drive without heat. No smoke or smell for about 5 minutes and then it started up again. (so I shut the heat again - brrr!)

I don't know much about the o-rings (although I see it is a very common problem on these Jaguars based on what I've read here) but the smoke definitely is pouring in through the heating vent system - either from the top of the dash (defroster output) or from the dash vents (when I turned off the defroster mode).

I can drive for a while without smoke or smells - then when I start to smell the burnng again I turn off the ventilation and the smell dissipates.

If it was the o-rings, would the smell stop and start? If I turn off the fan, it will minimize the odour in the car.

One thing I've discovered since owning this car - Jaguars have many common issues!

Again, I appreciate any and all help and suggestions.

 

The O-Rings leak oil onto the hot exhaust and it burns off. If they are bad enough that you're getting smoke in the cabin there will be a LOT of oil on the exhaust heat shield on the passenger side of the car.

Yes turning the fan on / off would make the odor stronger less. The car pulls fresh air in from the outside at the cowl. (Inches from the rings). If the HVAC is off, then no outside air is entering the car, so the smell would diminish.

Let me know if you need a picture of where to look.

Take care,

George

 

It may well not be "THE" problem, but odds are, your IMT O-ings are leaking. The smell comes from oil dripping on the exhaust manifold, then baking off from the heat. So, you won't get any smell nor smoke on cold-start, but as the engine warms, it will begin. The intake for your HVAC system is directly above the point where the oil is baking on the intake manifold. Therefore, it draws it into the cabin and blows it out your selected discharge vents (Floor, panel, or def) Try this on your next cold start:
(you'll have to do a bit of manual-research to get it right) but select "recirc" on your climate panel and do whatever it is you have to do to get it to stay in recirc (I think a single button push will put it in recirc for 2 min, or 6 min or something whilst press and hold for 2 sec locks it in recirc? verify that in the manual b'c I'm not sure) Now you should be drawing air off the passenger side footwell which is why it isn't really valid to try after it starts smoking as you'd just recirculate the smoke already blown into the cabin.

I'm curious:
"I later (10 minutes or so) turned the heat back on - it's damned cold here (-15C or about 2F) to drive without heat. No smoke or smell for about 5 minutes and then it started up again. (so I shut the heat again - brrr!)"
Did you drop him off and keep car running or was there an engine shutdown before you reactivated the heater? If engine ran the entire time, I'm running out of explanations..except if your speed/prevailing wind was sufficient to divert the smoke from your HVAC intake for 5 mins, then you made a turn or got into stop-n-go traffic?

Otherwise, there is really nothing in your HVAC to go up in smoke. 3 or 4 speed blower systems usually have a wire resistor in the case that gets hot enough to burn plastic/rubber (at the lower spd settings) but the infinitely variable blower speed is usually accomplished with a circuit board and heat sink in the airstream and I don't believe they get that hot. If your heater core is hot enough to make smoke from plastic or rubber....you may well have bigger problems...as in engine overheating...but that should be lighting lights and driving guages. The HVAC systems are crammed full of foam seals, rubber and plastic flaps, etc ect...and these can always come apart and blow through the system until they get caught on something....so you could have something in there even though you didn't drop it in....but unless the blower wheel is rubbing on it....and you'd hear that...I don't know of anything hot enough make it smoke.

Maybe humor us and take a napkin out and do the IMT swipe, just for giggles?

 

Please listen to these guys....

My O-rings failed as well.

Simple test. Reach behind the intake manifold on the passenger side. You will feel a plastic part bolted to it. You will more than likely need hand cleaner to get the oil off of your hands... The oil drips out and runs down the back of the motor and exhaust. When the engine warms up you get this stinky burning small.. In your case, the oil should be easy to find since it is also smoking and being drawn into the cabin.

BTW... a way to minimize the smoke and smell would be to leave the climate control on recirculate.

 

The 03+ Blower motors don't have a resistor. They accomplish fan speed by Pulse with modulation. Basically rapidly turning the power to the motor on / off.

Straight on = 12v to the motor.
On 50% of the time = 6v to the motor etc.

No heatsink and no resistor necessary .

Take care,

George

 

https://www.jaguarforums.com/forum/s...ad.php?t=49214

 

As I was searching for it Rick...

Btw any news / updates on our friend's car?

George

 

Somehow...I knew you'd know that! thx.
My Merc has the controller w'heat sink....F150 probably too, as it is Ford EATC....totally forgot all about PWM. So one less thing in there to light it up!=Goodness

 

Have you seen a climate control unit apart? There's a thread that shows what to solder when you fry the traces. Like most things these days, it's tiny compared to the size of the package.

My old BMW had the "climate control resistor pack". Basically all it was was a voltage step down, by virtue of putting an in-line resistor. Extra voltage got dissipated as heat. Just like an old school R/C car's speed control LOL.

Take care,

George

 

LOL...no...I'm a Mech E...know just barely enough about circuits, 0's, and 1's to get into trouble!!! I'm forever thankful God put guys like you (and other EE's) on Earth who have the patience and understanding of the ways of the tron!

Having said that....I do plan to get a look at the broken traces on my XJ ABS module one fine day...though they are allegedly bigger.....but that'll hafta wait until I put the Excursion back together and get the wife's 05-S fitted with new pads/rotors on the rear....Yikes! I frittered away all evening in here...I better get out there and crawl over the diesel and determine if I'll need anything besides a vac. hose and a handful of 5/8" clamps!...at least....

Glad to know there's a thread and that the CC mod may be repairable...because when (not "if") the daughter's DCCV lets go....chance of changing it out quickly are slim with her 6 hrs away....prolly take the module with it...

 

You blow up a module or need something retraced, fedex it to me and I'll fedex it back. The S-Types module is child's play to retrace.

My father was an ME. Specialized in doing Thermal Analysis. Did most of the Thermal Analysis for the carbon / kevlar reinforced ceramic tiles used on the bottom of the space shuttle during re entry. So I have mad respect for you guys too,

Take care,

George

 

nahhh

 

If it's NOT the IMT but instead IS rubber/plastic..... probably need to take at least some of the dash apart to find it