In response to the caller who smelled maple from her car, I have a less dire possibility. My husband smelled antifreeze and couldn’t find a leak. Turned out to be a cracked wiper fluid tube was spraying on our engine. Happy, happy husband!
If replacing the windshield wiper fluid hose worked for you, then I am very happy for you.
However, since windshield wiper fluid tends to smell like alcohol, rather than like maple syrup, I am very skeptical of this “fix”.
Could be that the alcohol was burned off by the hot engine? Also, we have to use non-freezy wiper fluid this time of year. Don’t know, but the end of the smell coincided with the fixed hose.
It’s funny, because I never thought that anitfreeze smelled like maple syrup.
But today I drove the car that has a very slight heater box leak - and I can easily see how someone could mistake the smell for maple syrup.
I never thought either antifreeze or washer fluid smelled like maple syrup, but I have mistaken the smell of “winter mix” washer fluid for antifreeze.