Smell of Burnt Rubber from Heater

[Manolito]

This is actually a new development in my tale of woe in dealing with the BMW dealer in San Luis Obispo CA (see "No Start" thread from last week).

Daughter went to pick up car today. After turning over $750 for a new starter that I strongly suspect was not needed, she got in the car and started it up and immediately noticed that the SRS light was on and there was strong smell of burned rubber coming from the heater ducts. She says that each time she starts the car, she smells it again, though it is gradually clearing up.

The likelihood is that the SRS light is on because some bozo who is unclear on the concept of fastening a seat belt jammed the tab into the buckle at an odd angle and triggered a "Seat belt buckle failure" code to set in the SRS. That is a fairly common problem, and it has happened before on both my e36s.

What the heck did they do to my car that would cause the smell of burnt rubber to come out of the heater?

Anyone else ever experienced this?

[RacerJames666]

Im stumped!!

but

you did get me to think my seatbelt sensor just "thinks" theres something wrong, and all I need is a peake tool!!!

[Manolito]

Both of my e36s have set the SRS light several times when there was nothing actually wrong. The Peake tool more than paid for itself.

My first clue was, after taking the first BMW Wifemobile in twice for new driver side seat belt buckles during its warrantee period, I had another SRS light after the 4 year warrantee was up, and about 13 months after the latest buckle (just outside the 12 month warrantee on replacement parts). I just could not believe that all these buckles were defective, so I started researching how to trick the SRS system into thinking that the buckle is always buckled so it would not get these false error signals.

I never found a way to modify the wiring, but I found that once I pointed out to my wife that the problem was the way she was jambing the tab into the buckle, the problem stopped happening for several years - until the daughters started driving the two e36s. Once I got them trained , no more SRS lights until this week.

[itsabimmerthing]

That is odd. Burnt rubber from the heater. Odd indeed. I wonder just what the hell else they were doing to your bimmer. I would be a little frosty when I got it back.

[Manolito]

I don't like taking my cars to any shop. That is why I do virtually all my own repair work, but that is tough to do when the cars are off at college. I have spent $1600 at shops in that town in the last two months.

First was a Volvo clutch at the highest-rated indy shop in town. That did not turn out great. They left out the sound deadening foam from beneath the shifter and left the shift boot torn and sitting, unattached, on top of the carpet. Who knows what else they did! At least the clutch works.

Then came this trip to the BMW dealer, which was also less than satisfactory.

[itsabimmerthing]

Sorry to hear about that. Sounds like you have had it pretty rough lately! Hopefully the E36 is going good for you, and the damn rubber smell goes away.