Car smells like burning electrical wires???? Options

[massbrandon]

Ok so I know I havent been around in a while but tonight when I got out of my car at Borders I noticed that my car smelled kind of funny. Well I thought nothing of it and just drove home. When I got home I checked again and sure nough smells like burning wires. I popped the hood and nothing smells under there. The only place it smells is at the muffler. Anyone have any input on this?? Thanks in advance.

[95celgt]

well, what ever it is check it out asap, look around the taillight or trunk harness. A short will cause the copperwire to heat up so much it will burn the insulation off and will ignite surrounding wires in seconds. l had a bad relay ignite 3 white wires with black stripes in the main fuse box and it ran all the way inside to a block by the clutch pedal area.

[massbrandon]

Thanks man. I appreciate it.

[My2Celi]

yes definately check all your wires and circuits. I knew I smelled something, but thought it was nothing. But my cruise control box short circuited and burned my whole dash harness and went through afterwards... good luck with the hunt!

[LeonStryfe]

Might be an electrical problem, best check it out and quickly too before it gets worse

[Negative]

Not to down play this but you could spend a whole lot of time searching for a short that doesn't exist. I've seen alot of times [and this has happened to me] where a plastic bag that you drove over on the road got sucked up by the air moving under the car and melted to the exhaust. It smelled for like a week of driving but that's all it was. I figured it out because I followed my nose to the source of the smell and noticed the remnants of the bag on my exhaust. It will look like black stuff on there and will probably stain the exhaust forever. You will see it smoking when te exhaust is hot. It's happened to friends of mine too. Check that first before you start ripping the car apart. If you don't find anything like that then yeah - you better find the short soon. Any electrical devices on your car acting funny?

[massbrandon]

Everything is fine now. Last night I took out my silencer and the smell went away??? I know I had some rust on the silencer but I dont think that caused the smell but who knows. It doesnt smell anymore