Smell of burning (oil?) from Fiat Ducato heater vents Forums

belle-france · Last edited by belle-france on Fri Mar 24, 2006 6:06 pm; edited 1 time in total

I have a 2001 Hymer B644G on a Fiat Ducato chassis with a 2.8 tdi engine (not the jtd). I have only recently bought it and the vehicle was fully serviced and valeted and also included a cambelt change. When I drive along all seems to be fine but when I slow in traffic or am just stationary with the engine running and the fan heater fan on I can smell something similar to the smell of burning oil from the central air vents. There is next to no smell at all under the bonnet and I have checked for oil leaks and there seems to be none. There is no smoke or anything, just the smell. I have driven just over 1000 miles since the service and think that any spillages, which might have occurred during the service, would have burned off by now. Also the heater seems difficult to get right. The temperature is either too hot or just cold. Anyone out there with any ideas?
Many thanks

Grizzly

Can't answer the question belle-france but welcme to the forum anyway. Someone will be along soon who will be able to answer.

What a lovely part of the world to be -Gascony. I guess we'll be asking you questions as well !

G

ralph-dot

My Ducato doesn't have this problem but my Fiat Marea does, even though they have very similar engines.

Ralph

Enodreven

Hi, belle-france

You don't say how many miles the vehicle has covered and if anything was mentioned on the service ?? as it could be the engine is worn and you are getting the smell from the engine breather ?? have you checked the oil level since the service ? has it used any ? as this could be a sign of wear ?

belle-france

Hi all and thanks for the replies. The vehicle has covered only 20,000 miles from new and the service threw up nothing untoward. No oil seems to have been used and I will check the engine breather. Any other ideas Question

belle-france

Problem solved!!!- well at least I know what it is now
I took the vehicle to a Fiat dealer here in France and they found that on the 2.8tdi (but not the JTD) Fiat coated the engine in paraffin wax as a form of protection because the motors used to sit around for a bit before being fitted to vehicles. The smell was the thick paraffin wax burning off and making its way into the two front air intakes that Hymer have fitted at the front offside. The advice was not to powerwash with a degreasant because that would lead to future electrical problems but to wipe off the excess when the vehicle is hot and put in some more mileage and eventually the wax will drop off. Incidentally Fiat put two guys on it for about 40 minutes and wouldn't take a penny (or cent)!