Jaydoc1
New member
This is really going to seem like a ridiculous question to ask via the internet but I am on the off chance that someone will say, "Hey I had that exact thing and it was this" before I take it in to get looked at.
Today I had the JK out (2013 JKUR, auto, 3" Enforcer on 35s with King shocks so you know what I'm dealing with) on a very mild trail with a cooler in the back, 3 full-sized adults and two 10-ish year old kids. Not overloaded in other words.
We had been driving about 1.5 hours with no real stress on the engine or transmission. 4-lo engaged. Sway bar disconnected.
When we stopped for lunch and I went to open the tailgate there was a strange smell at the right rear of the Jeep.
The smell did not smell like gas. It did not smell like a hot engine. It did not smell like anything hot at all, in fact. The closest thing that I can compare the odor to is something like an adhesive or solvent, or maybe a propellent like in an aerosol can (none of these things were a cause of the smell, BTW).
The engine was running perfectly. No knocks. No smoking. No overheating. No strange odors from the exhaust. Nothing out of the ordinary.
The only strange thing that had happened all morning was that at one point, when I put the transfer case back in two-wheel drive the transmission would not shift in to drive (or reverse for that matter). It was stuck in neutral. I shut the Jeep off, turned it back on and then it shifted fine.
So the smell dissipated as we ate lunch. There were no leaks anywhere that I could find.
At that point I figured that maybe the smell was related to a different vehicle in the parking area where we were and we proceeded on.
About an hour later the smell came back with a vengeance, this time in the cabin (soft top on, all windows up, A/C on). Again no performance issues at all. We were in 4-Hi at this time.
I crawled all around under the Jeep and could not find any kind of fluid leak whatsoever. After about 30 minutes of looking around, and being about an hour from home, we decided to pack it in, rolled down all the windows, flipped back the freedom top, put the JK in 2-wheel and headed home. Smell gone within about 15 minutes and didn't recur.
I am completely stumped as to what this might be and would love to have at least some sort of educated guess before I head to a stealership where they could tell me it was absolutely anything as they play "Guess the cause" at several hundred dollars a pop.
Any ideas would be welcome.
Thanks!
Jim
Today I had the JK out (2013 JKUR, auto, 3" Enforcer on 35s with King shocks so you know what I'm dealing with) on a very mild trail with a cooler in the back, 3 full-sized adults and two 10-ish year old kids. Not overloaded in other words.
We had been driving about 1.5 hours with no real stress on the engine or transmission. 4-lo engaged. Sway bar disconnected.
When we stopped for lunch and I went to open the tailgate there was a strange smell at the right rear of the Jeep.
The smell did not smell like gas. It did not smell like a hot engine. It did not smell like anything hot at all, in fact. The closest thing that I can compare the odor to is something like an adhesive or solvent, or maybe a propellent like in an aerosol can (none of these things were a cause of the smell, BTW).
The engine was running perfectly. No knocks. No smoking. No overheating. No strange odors from the exhaust. Nothing out of the ordinary.
The only strange thing that had happened all morning was that at one point, when I put the transfer case back in two-wheel drive the transmission would not shift in to drive (or reverse for that matter). It was stuck in neutral. I shut the Jeep off, turned it back on and then it shifted fine.
So the smell dissipated as we ate lunch. There were no leaks anywhere that I could find.
At that point I figured that maybe the smell was related to a different vehicle in the parking area where we were and we proceeded on.
About an hour later the smell came back with a vengeance, this time in the cabin (soft top on, all windows up, A/C on). Again no performance issues at all. We were in 4-Hi at this time.
I crawled all around under the Jeep and could not find any kind of fluid leak whatsoever. After about 30 minutes of looking around, and being about an hour from home, we decided to pack it in, rolled down all the windows, flipped back the freedom top, put the JK in 2-wheel and headed home. Smell gone within about 15 minutes and didn't recur.
I am completely stumped as to what this might be and would love to have at least some sort of educated guess before I head to a stealership where they could tell me it was absolutely anything as they play "Guess the cause" at several hundred dollars a pop.
Any ideas would be welcome.
Thanks!
Jim
Last edited: