Hi. I'm new to this, so bear with me. I just bought a '99 outback limited wagon two months ago. Whenever I drive it for more than five or ten minutes and then stop, there's a noticable smell of burning rubber inside the car. It goes away when I'm actually moving, but when I'm stopped and the engine is idling, or when I've parked and turned off the engine, the smell is there. Any ideas?

 

Quit making skid marks everywhere. j/k, sorry

 

sounds kinda like the problem i've been having. i have a 99 subaru legacy outback that smells like burining transmission fluid everytime the engine gets warm. you don't really notice it until u stop moving, but the smell can be pretty strong.
the automatic transmission pan and seal have been replaced and now it smells different, but it still smokes sometimes. we took it back to the dealer again and they said that they overfilled the transmission fluid and supposedly the removed the excess and checked the seal again, but of course it still stinks. you would think that any residue left on the manifold would have been burned off by now and we even tried degreasing the engine at the car wash, but the st00pid thing still smells funny.

 

Check your front crank seal, and make sure it's not leaking oil onto the headers. Seems to be a Legacy thing


//Mark

Ps: Good time to do your timing belt too

 

The car on has 43K on it. Isn't it a little early to change the timing belt?

Thanks for the advice!

 

It might be early but everything is off anyways. Couldn't hurt

//Mark

 

Yup, same problem for me. In my situation, my oil pump is leaking oil onto my headers (very little, not enough to drip onto the ground, but I can see oil on my headers when I get my oil changes). I have to replace my oil pump seal. And yes, you should get your timing belt changed too since that's usually why it cost so much to change (labour-to rip everything apart and since it's apart already, why are you going to pay for the labor twice) Hope this helps. I'm getting mine fix next week. (reseal, timing, shaft belfts, waterpump, gasket seals) BTW, 4 mechs (including one subaru) advised me to change the TB when I get the pump resealed

 

To answer your question, Yes. But I speak with first hand experience that this is a symptom of BD/BG Legacys as I've had two(BD's) exibit this; one @ 45K and another @ 62K. So yes I know it's the crank seal.


//M