Ocassionally my car smells like burned vinyl when I hit the brakes? Sometimes see fumes after I park. Ny suggestions as to the problem?
Manual? Automatic? Describe your braking technique? If it's an automatic, are you a left-foot braker? Can't say how many times I've seen people driving down the road with their brake lights lit up as they're just toodlin' along. Left foot braking isn't a bad skill, but it takes vigilant awareness of what's going on with your feet - since there's no place to rest the left foot, you have to purposely hold it off the brake pedal, and muscles don't stay, uh, "in-tension" (for lack of the exact terminology) perpetually, eventually the foot/ankle/leg muscles will relax, and at that point, one might end up with their left foot on the brake pedal without being aware of riding the brakes. Barring a technique problem, unless every brake application is full-on lockup, doesn't sound normal. Make sure your parking brake is off. If you drive really hard with repeated hard brake applications getting the brakes hot, smoke & smell might just be normal. Hot brakes have a distinctive smell, familiar to anyone who's done a few track days and finds themselves shortly behind someone else entering a turn requiring heavy braking after a long straight or high-speed section of track. Not sure that I would describe that smell as being like hot vinyl though, but words fail to give an accurate description of the smell of hot brakes. I would suggest getting it checked out in case you have an issue. Pay attention to everything that was happening or how you were driving immediately prior to having this happen.
Is the vehicle all wheels drive axle boots and rip and throw grease causing burning smells. Also valve cover gaskets can leak and cause smells. I would start with those two things.
