Bad or Burnt Exhaust smell in cabin during hard acceleration. | Page 71 | Ford Explorer Forums - Serious Explorations

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Has anyone heard of, found, or experienced a solution to the Ford Explorer exhaust issue?


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Blanchard, you got me looking and taping. The area around the tail lights looks like a place for leakage into the rear fender well, but I don't know if that area is open to the cabin or not. One of the earlier TSB's including replacing what they call "air extractors" which are located behind the rear wheels in the fender well area,,,,I think. I don't know, but I think these are like "reed valves" that are supposed to let air/pressure out, but not in. The service manager told me that you have take the rear wheel well Trim off to get to the extractors, and in doing so you break the "tabs" on them which means having to replace the trim pieces. $$$ ??? Do you, or anyone else have any knowledge about these? I took out the adjustable rubber stops on the tailgate, and the drain hole "flappers" and taped them and the area around the taillights. Tomorrow we are going on a short drive (60mi round trip), and I'll test it some. We live in a rural area and anything we need to buy means at least a 60 mile round trip on mostly two lane highways with a lot of truck traffic. So there are usually "opportunities" to "step on it" a bit :) We run our a/c on recirc all the time to keep out the other vehicles exhaust, but it doesn't always help, and now with this problem, it makes it worse.
I'll post back tomorrow after the trip. Thanks again Gary
 



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Blanchard & whom it may concern:
Made a few acceleration runs today and my results are the same as you reported. I taped the areas you mentioned and any other suspicious looking holes or cracks. I couldn't smell anything after a run recirc OFF. My wife however(didn't spend 30yrs in a chemical plant) said she could smell it "a little". With recirc ON, the smell was present, but reduced from what we have had before. It was cold with a moderate north wind, so there was not a crosswind of any significance. In the past, we have noticed the smell more when traveling crosswind. ?

However what I also know is that there is a flap that closes off flow from the outside when recirc is triggered. This usually seals off incoming gases.
In the older cars, that flap had a small port in it to allow a percentage of outside air to enter and keep any unwanted gases (CO) from accumulating. There were cases where some folks died from lack of oxygen while "stuck" in blizzard conditions and running the engine and heater. The "hole" in the duct door was supposed to let in enough fresh air to prevent that. I don't know how that is accomplished in today's cars, but the "air extractors" in out explorers are partially there to let some air out so that some fresh air can come in. As if these cars are so tight that is necessary :)
The tests you and I (and others) have done just frustrates me more. There is no way that FORD has not figured out where the smell is coming in. Come on, 4 year models, and now I hear the 2015 STILL HAS THE SAME PROBLEM. Grrrrrrrr ! We are due an oil change soon, and we have a new "service" mgr at the nearest stealership. I'll see what he has to say. I really don't expect anything positive from "FORD ENGI SNEERING". I'll post back when I have something to report. Gary
 






Glad there is some noticable improvement.

The biggest single improvement I noticed was taping up the holes on the interior hatch near the rubber bumpers. For good measure I also "screwed in" the bumpers to min. position. My wife is pregnant and couldn't even smell a hint of it with recirc off through over a dozen wot runs. These holes are an obvious bypass around the hatch seal and go into the hatch itself.

Then taping off the tail light and other areas in the "drain trough" produced a significant improvement while having recirc on.

Although I haven't removed he tail light assembly to investigate further, I suspect that there is a small leak path into the interior of the vehicle here through wiring harness that connects to the tail lamps.

I hear ya on the lack of response to investigating the issue. I never imagined that my 2014 explorer with 10k miles on it would have turned into my project car instead of my 2010 GT.
 






Interesting observation this weekend: I was looking at the rear hatch on a chevy Equinox. Low and behold they have openings in the same lower left and right corners near the rubber bumpers. However they have oval rubber plugs in them.
 






Its been a little while so I thought I would report back on my findings after the rear hatch seal replacement. It seemed to have worked "slightly", but definitely the smell is still prominent with the recirc on. Very disappointed as I thought that would be it! They also put plugs in the two drain holes on the bottom of the hatch...one of which has already fallen out. Like the others, it seems pretty obvious that exhaust is entering thru the rear hatch somewhere. I found a few "areas of interest" that I will report back on later, as I have yet to test them out. With the degree of odor that is occurring, there has to be a large scale air leak somewhere. I very much doubt all of the this is being caused by a few small pin holes - but, I could be wrong.
 






I think the main thing to consider is the fact that Carbon Monoxide may be entering the cabin. I am still waiting on my 2015 Sport to be delivered from the factory, which should be any day now. I have purchased a 200 dollar Carbon Monoxide detector that will be traveling with me in the vehicle. It shows a digital readout of the amount of Carbon Monoxide in the air. Will be reporting what I find on this thread. I, too will be using 93 octane fuel...don't know if that will have anything to do with anything, its just a personal preference. I think it has more to do with the design of the lift gate seals more than anything.
 






I did what blanchard did and it helped a lot. I taped around the tail light "seals" and over the drain holes etc. I am going to go back and seal with caulk or something similar to replace the tape. No way to know for sure, but it seems that sealing the areas around the tail lights helped the most. Just looking at the lift gate seal, it appears to be making contact all the way around. We drive on a caliche road, and this car literally "sucks" the white dust up all over the back end. I can see where the dust is being blocked by the seal, but it may still be leaking some. You'll never catch me waiting on another Ford to be delivered. Good luck with your sport odyssey .
 






This thread is so funny....It just keeps going on an on while Ford continues to do nothing to fix the problem........Happy Holidays Plum
 






With the smell 95-99% gone, and my windshield noise gone, I rather like this SUV. However I'll be skeptical of buying something produced in the Chicago plant.
 






This thread is so funny....It just keeps going on an on while Ford continues to do nothing to fix the problem........Happy Holidays Plum
It makes us feel better to talk about it,,maybe. :)
Merry Christmas to All,,,,,even Ford engineering :)
 






I have a 2015 XLT and I am trying to produce this smell you guys are talking about. What do I need to do beside have the recirculation on?
 






I have a 2015 XLT and I am trying to produce this smell you guys are talking about. What do I need to do beside have the recirculation on?

Most reliable way to re produce the smell:

Recirc on
A/C on
Rear air on
Fan speed at least mid range
make sure you aren't driving into a headwind

floor it for a good 7-8 seconds or more. Like 0-70.

If you can't reproduce the smell, this would be an interesting development.
 






Most reliable way to re produce the smell:

Recirc on
A/C on
Rear air on
Fan speed at least mid range
make sure you aren't driving into a headwind

floor it for a good 7-8 seconds or more. Like 0-70.

If you can't reproduce the smell, this would be an interesting development.

My truck only has 400 miles on it. Isn't it bad to put the pedal to the metal without the engine being broken in?
 






I wouldn't do it just yet and be happy that you don't have the problem at the moment. I never did have 'the smell' issue with my 2011. If it doesn't appear under your normal driving style, I wouldn't be concerned about it. Perhaps (fingers crossed) they may have finally remedied the problem in the 2015 model. Good luck.

Peter
 






I wouldn't do it just yet and be happy that you don't have the problem at the moment. I never did have 'the smell' issue with my 2011. If it doesn't appear under your normal driving style, I wouldn't be concerned about it. Perhaps (fingers crossed) they may have finally remedied the problem in the 2015 model. Good luck.

Peter

Yea, I haven't smelled the gas smell yet that people are talking about in this thread. I also haven't really put the pedal to the floor either. The highest I got it up to was 4,000 RPM's while passing someone on the highway and didn't notice any smell.

I didn't notice one smell tough. When I brought my car home, it had 5 miles on it and for the first couple days until I hi about 100 miles, I noticed this burning rubber/plastic smell outside of the vehicle. That smell has since went away though.
 






Before plugging some of the holes in the liftgate/tail light area, we got a nose full even when going up an overpass on the interstate when the car downshifted one gear. The rpm didn't go over 4k. Since closing up some of the holes, it's not as bad,still there when accelerating harder, like merging into 70 mph traffic. The leakage is there all the time, just able to smell it when the engine is working hard and the fuel/air mix is rich, and wind currents are right to aggravate the situation.
 












Regardless...the first time you go to pass someone, broken in engine or not, you'll notice it.

I don't know if you read my latest post but I did say that I passed someone on the highway getting the RPM's up to a little over 4,000 and didn't notice the smell. I had the heat on in the car with the windows up.
 






I don't know if you read my latest post but I did say that I passed someone on the highway getting the RPM's up to a little over 4,000 and didn't notice the smell. I had the heat on in the car with the windows up.
If you "ease" down on the throttle, you may not notice it because the the fuel/air mixture doesn't get overly rich when the "engine load" increases more slowly. You don't need to "red line" the rpm's, but you need to accelerate hard.
"Break it in like you're going to drive it", you won't hurt it.
 



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I don't know if you read my latest post but I did say that I passed someone on the highway getting the RPM's up to a little over 4,000 and didn't notice the smell. I had the heat on in the car with the windows up.

Yeah I saw that part...I'm trying to describe an engine load condition (like GWTX). Basically you need an engine load condition that commands fuel enrichment. This is somewhere between 75-100% of full throttle (every car differs here).

I typically don't notice the smell unless I am at wide open throttle, at any vehicle speed.
 






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