i just got to plymouth, from bournemouth. for 90% of the jouerney the car didnt miss a beat. but on the end of the m5 i noticed a burning smell. it was like a sweet smell too though does anyone know what it might be? so when i noticed this the car started struggling and i had to drop down to second to make it up a hill. and even at 60mph 4th gear made the car feel like it was starving itself!. then i kept it at 60 for a while and i was fine the reast of the way. could it just be overheating? considering i did gun it on the m5 about 75-80 to overtake?


Joe.

Sounds like another partial seizure caused by overheating... I presume there's plenty of good quality, clean oil in the engine, that the cooler's clean, and that you DIDN'T HAVE THE MUFF ON...?



There's no "just" about overheating - and a healthy 2cv should be able to cruise flat out all day long.

plenty of fresh new oil, no muff on the grille! erm, ill have to check the cooler. partial seizure? im bit worried now!


Joe.

I presume you have checked under the bonnet that nothing has come into contact with the exhaust. Burnt oil has a unique smell which I wouldn't describe as "sweet". Some plastics can give that smell as indeed the unique smell of a clutch thats burning out or been ridden hard.

Doesn't explain the loss of performance though, assuming the smell is linked to that. If it's a partial seizure, you can replace pistons and barrels easily and cheaply, but it's not going to solve WHY it overheated in the first place.

I'm about as far from 'expert' as you can get on such matters though.

A slipping or badly adjust clutch would give a loss of performance and an interesting sweet smell which can resemble cooked fish a la Keith Floyd [that could be in bad taste]

It could, but the way it was worded 'the car struggled' made me think it was seizing as opposed to revving the nuts off and getting nowhere?

Unlikely. Fish cooked by Floyd would undoubtedly have tasted superb.

I think I just had a seizure

My last engine seized burning smell loss of power etc bit scary on the M1 i left it for about 10 mins to cool down then kept going then a few months later is kept doing it (on the way to the french national boooo!) so eventually i had a new engine put in, sad thing is this new engine did it a couple of months ago so it will probably do it again in the future and I'll need a 3rd engine I'd get it looked at properly because going on my experience it will happen again.


.....wonders if it the way I drive?