# 2003 Nissan Sentra burnt smell **URL:** \ **Category:** Maintenance/Repairs\ **Tags:** nissan\ **Created:** [April 3, 2012, 11:00pm UTC](https://community.cartalk.com/t/2003-nissan-sentra-burnt-smell/71745 "2012-04-03T23:00:34Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 3\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![carfair](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e274bd/32.png) [@carfair](https://community.cartalk.com/u/carfair)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2012, 11:00pm UTC](https://community.cartalk.com/t/2003-nissan-sentra-burnt-smell/71745/1 "2012-04-03T23:00:34Z")
My 2003 Nissan Sentra was doing fine a few days ago until I started up a very steep hill and went into 1st gear. There was a burning smell for about 2 blocks so I shifted to 2nd gear. The smell went away. When I was in 1st gear it did not sound or feel like I was trying to go too fast for the gear. I just smelled the burning. Same hill in 2nd, no smell. How much should I worry? ---
**Author:** ![lion9car](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/59ef9b/32.png) [@lion9car](https://community.cartalk.com/u/lion9car)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2012, 1:04am UTC](https://community.cartalk.com/t/2003-nissan-sentra-burnt-smell/71745/2 "2012-04-04T01:04:02Z")
A slipping clutch can definitely make a burning smell, but I would expect this to happen in second gear before first gear. A completely different possibility is that you have a valve cover gasket leak that dripped oil onto hot parts of the engine when you first angled the car steeply uphill. Did you see smoke at any point? ---
**Author:** ![carfair](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e274bd/32.png) [@carfair](https://community.cartalk.com/u/carfair)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2012, 9:31am UTC](https://community.cartalk.com/t/2003-nissan-sentra-burnt-smell/71745/3 "2012-04-05T09:31:04Z")
No smoke, just the smell.