Ok, this one scared the crap out of me: I started the 'Roc and went a couple of blocks and thought I could smell smoke. Then soon after (another block or so) great amounts of smoke come billowing out of the vents! I quickly pulled the car over and shut it off. I had the heater on defrost and the fan on low. I turned the heater off and no smoke. The blower had been sounding slightly louder than it should for a little while. I have noticed this smoke smell only once before, but not the smoke I seen today.

Any help on what is causing this would be appreciated as I do not want my car spontaniously burst into flames when I am driving it.

Thanks!

 

It smells like fire? I've had smoke come from my a/c vents but that was becuase of a bad heater core.

 

Maybe a wire burnt up.

When I still had my '85, I was outside cleaning it out one day. The car had been sitting in my driveway not running for over two hours. I was cleaning everything out from under the seats, vacuuming and stuff, when all of a sudden white smoke started pouring out my vents and from under the hood. Turned out my toggle switch for my fuel pump that the previous owner had installed grounded out and burnt up. Took out a whole mess of the computers wiring too. Car never ran the same again. I did get it all fixed eventually, and the day after the engine siezed.

I hope your problem isn't as bad.

 

I hope its not the heater core. I replaced that ~2.5 years ago.

It definetely smelt like burning and not steam. But there was a heck of a lot of it.

Faded: Man, bite your tongue! I so don't want to hear stories like that after I just got my car running after 3 months of being decommissioned. Sorry for your bad luck.

 

you said your blower motor sounds different?
maybe that is it
pull the blower and smell to see if it is from that

 

Hehe, sorry man. Knock on wood.

 

I used to have a terrible burning smell in my car, and would also see smokle. I found the problem... it was the top part of the HVAC that was burning. I saw it turn orage, and smoke. Just went to a junk yard, and grabbed a part from another one and slapped it on. It worked fine after that.

Don't know if that's you're problem, but you might want to take off the radio bezel and take a look at the top of the HVAC. Also, I would only get it to smoke and burn on a few of the settings, the defrost... so check em all.

My old car, an '80 Oldsmobile Custom Cruiser Station Wagon used to have billows of smoke pour through the vents when I would stop at every light. I would have to always roll the windows down when stopped and roll 'em back up when moving. If I remember right, it was a cracked head gasket.

Good luck!

 

I had smelly smoke comming through my vents. It turns out that my master cylinder cap was loose and brake fluid was splashing onto the exhaust manifold smoking things up. Tightened the cap and it never happened again.

 

Well I finally got around to taking apart the blower and AC core cover. I should have guessed this, but since my car was sitting for ~1 year I believe a mouse tried making its home in there. I have no idea how it got in there, but there were large clumps of fabric and cotton pieces inthe blower motor wheel and next to the AC core.

A couple of pieces of the cotton were burned thus causing the burning smell and the louder noise because the fan wasn't ballanced due to the cotton/fiber crap inside the wheel.

So I appreciate all the suggestions, but I'm just glad non of them were the case, because that means I don't have to buy any replacement parts.

Thanks again to all those that responded.