Interior unit rattle and burning smell

[Allycatraz]

Hello All,

For my first post I thought i'd put a question to you all...

Has anyone had a similar issue to the one i experienced earlier today.

After last nights rather freezing cold night, i started my Mazda 6 (It came up with -5c as the outside temp). The engine rattled slightly but after a few seconds sounded healthy. I started defrosting the car and so on and de iced a few windows. Once it was cleared i drove off to work. Almost immediatley the interior main unit (where all the dials/radio etc is held) started rattling. It was fairly loud. After about 5 minutes i could smell a burning/smokey smell. I couldnt figure out if it was coming from the unit, the air vents or outside, although i'm pretty sure it was related to the random rattle. By the time i got to work (about 5 mins later), the rattle had disappearred and the smell too. I've since used the car to see if the problem arose again and all seems fine and normal.

So i'm wondering... does anyone know what it might be?? Could it have just been because it was so cold?? Does the air con have anything to do with it as it was on full (for defrost) and i suspect it needs cleaning?? Or anything else??

Any help would be great
Cheers guys

Alex

[Johnny Drama]

Welcome to the forum.

Mine, ( and most ) cars rattle when it's cold because the plastic shrinks and the tolerances aren't as tight as they should be. When it warms up and expands everything goes back to normal. So unless it's really bad it's nothing to worry about.

The smell though is another thing, and it depends what it smelled like. Burning plastic? burning trees? musty?

The aircon box has a filter in it that holds a lot of funky smells, and if you don't use it often it can stink for the first little while when you fire it up.

Otherwise, sometimes tree needles or leaves fall into the engine bay and when it get's hot smoke a little and be sucked into the vents.

One way to isloate whether it's inside or outside the car is to close the outside vent and see if it makes a difference.

If the problem goes away and doesn't return, I honestly think you have nothing to worry about.

I've also heard of people saying somethings burning and it turns out to be a little burnt clutch smell since it's cold and slipping a little. That is a pretty obvious smell if you're ever witnessed it before though.

[Allycatraz]

Hello Johnny,

Thanks and thanks for your reply...

With regards to the rattle... I guess rattle was putting it mildly. It was more than your usualy rattle/creak you'd expect as it sounded mechanical or like the CD changer was struggling very badly with a CD. It did sound like something behind the unit was functioning incorrectly, although on the flip side it may have been so cold that something behind the front panel of the unit was misaligned etc as you mentioned.

With regards to the smell... Well that was quite weird really. The smell lasted literally only 10 odd seconds, although there's a tad bit of a linger inside currently although this could be again because of the cold etc. I was in such a panic that the panel was burning i didnt think it change the ventilation switch. I will try that on the way home. The smoke was certainly more plastically/rubbery than trees although it didnt last too long so was hard to tell.

I suspect i was being a bit paranoid with it but it all seemed rather strange at the time.

Thanks for the advice

Alex

[Mindcore]

I'm going to guess a bad fan motor, would explain the smell, the rattling, and there isn't much else to go wrong back there that would create the problems you're having.