GenVibe - Community for Pontiac Vibe Enthusiasts

We have an '03 AWD- on hotter days, after parking the car, there is a strong anti freeze smell from the engine bay. It does NOT use any coolant, according to overflow bottle. Anyone else have this problem? It does not run hot and I have not had to add coolant. Just smells bad like it broke a hose or popped a gasket.Thanks for input, Bruce

It normal. Nothing wrong. Discussed in great length here:http://forums.genvibe.com/zerothread?id=1000

Nova-------Good thread referal. But I,myself have never smelled coolant in my Vibe even after it is driven hard and placed in an enclosed garage. I would suspect that this individual has an undiscovered leak somewhere. Sure the coolant would EVENTUALLY go down but maybe that would take time,so I feel that a good inspection and pressure test is in order.Some of the cars I have owned and I have smelled coolant --guess what-- I always find a small leak where vapors escape even after weeks of looking. But its there. James

Thanks for the feedback. I was planning on taking the car to the dealer but I was hoping to have additional info to give the service dept, if other Vibe owners were experiencing similar problems.

The thread Nova listed has a pretty heated debate (pun intended). If it was me, I would have it pressure checked. Being a self proclaimed non-expert, it would give me peace of mind whether they found a problem or not.

I have the same smelly problem. also, no loss of fluid or leakage. just odor

my car smells like egg when it's driven hard as well. maybe the guys in the factory eat eggs all the time and drop some now and then in the engine and stuff.

If you mean a rotten egg smell; it is from the sulfur in your gas reacting in the converter. Often improves with different fuel brands. (There is at least one old thread on this.)

I had the same thing on 07 Vibe with 12,000 km. Look from under the engine at the bottom of the water pump. If you see a discoloration or wet mark on the bottome of the water pump, it is leaking. You can put dye in the cooling system and pressure test to verify.

This is a 5yr old post BTW... lol..

seeing how he just joined yesterday and only has two posts, guess he has a lot to learn. My main issues were the search button, I knew where it was but could never get what i wanted lol