The night before last night on my way home the car made a chemical smell. Ford taurus 1995. So I checked the fluids in the morning and it was super low on antifreeze so I bought some and filled it. I checked several times and it still holding. Then when I was driving it last night it started making a chemical smell again and when I stopped it was smoking a little from under the serpentine belt, which is new. I started driving it this am after made sure the antifreeze was ok but it is making a grinding noise on acceleration. Should I try to make it to work or take it to the mechanic, who is closed on Sunday or call a tow truck? The ac which is normally good seemed to be not working so I thought it might be related to that so I didn’t use it this am.
I think you should have it towed. Driving it…even a short trip… may do more damage from over heating.
I’ll bet that the chemical smell you encountered was a little sweet smelling. That is coolant and it is either leaking or overheating
and expelling steam into the overflow tank.
If you have a major over heating…the engine may be shot. So better to call a tow truck.
I presume your water pump may be shot.
Yosemite
I drove it to the shop and left it there for them to work on tomorrow. It didn’t make the smell again or overheat for that matter, but it made the grinding sound off and on. The best way I can describe the smell is like a combination of cut grass and a very stong chemical smell. The smell is not at all sweet. Could it be leaking freon? What would that smell like? The water pump is new. It was replaced recently and then brought in for a double check on the cooling system when they said that there were no leaks.
I have my fingers crossed that it has nothing to do with the transmission. I can not afford a rebuild!
Glad that you got it to a shop without any problems.
Maybe that little smoke from near the serpentine belt was nothing but a little oil weeping and burning off.
That may be normal for your engine, but because you were more aware…you noticed it.
And because of your location, the engine may have been pretty hot.
I know…it’s a dry heat, but so is an oven!!!
The grinding could be a bearing in an idler pulley or the tensioner pulley bearing going bad. The shop that replaced the water pump may have
missed it or it may have not been a problem when they had it in their shop.
Yosemite
I had the idler pulley and tensioner assembly replaced when they replaced the serpentine belt. the replaced the alternator too because they said that was about to go and it would be stupid to do it later when it would be much more expensive to have to get back in the same area again.
It was definitely hot out that day so I was keeping an eye on the temp gauge the whole time!
The end of this story was that they said it needed an a/c compressor. I was not able to get one because of the cost. Unfortunately before I could get it taken care of, the transmission went out while I was driving it. The car did a 180 while breaking and when I pulled it off the side of the road the transmission fluid all leaked out. The grinding was bad, so I probably would have done better to get it towed, but my boss at work just said to drive it 'til it gave out because it wasn’t worth it after I took him out to see what was happening. It sure did give out. I had to get rid of that stupid silver fox, because I have spent so much on it and didn’t want to spend any more because I know it would not be the last thing and that there would be another and another problem.
It sounds like ridding yourself of that problematic Taurus is the best result. Best of luck.