So, driving around yesterday, I noticed an burning plastic smell. I pull over, look under my car, and sure enough, there is a plastic grocery bag stuck under the car near the center, and wisps of burning plastic. I pull it out - part of it has melted to the under side of the exhaust tube near where it narrows.

Aside from just letting it burn off, does anyone have any suggestions on how to remove the melted plastic?

 

Smells like a dork. Sorry.

 

I don't think there is a way to get that off other than getting under there and scraping it. Go for a spirited drive and the plastic will burn right off.

 

Had the same issue on my wife's Subaru. Made the garage smell like burning plastic for a couple of weeks until it burnt off. Getting rid of all the plastic you can see will still not get rid of all the smell, but it will cut down the time it takes to stop smelling.

 

That happened to my motorcycle years ago and the stench was unbelievable! What finally worked for me was wrapping the COLD exhaust pipe in rags and saturating it with either kerosene or nail polish remover...can't remember which. Old Fart Syndrome. But after about half an hour it softened the stuff up so much I was able to strip it off with the rag.

Good luck! Pete

 

That sounds interesting - I think acetone (nail polish remover) is known to soften plastic. I was always worried that using chemicals like that might corrode the pipe. Any chemists out there know if acetone does that?

 

Those plastic bags can cause more damage than you know. Years ago when Automobile mag was doing it's first test drive of the New Beetle - a plastic bag wraped around the front axle on the road and tore the axle up.

When I was a helicopter pilot, I was sitting on the end of a runway waiting to take-off and watched one of these plastic bags float toward my running rotor system. It went over my chopper and then got sucked down into the blades. I shut down quickly and found the bag had wraped around some control tubes. That would of ruined my whole day if I had got air born.

 

take it to a do it yourself carwash, and nail it with a powersprayer...just hold the nozzle right up to it... Working at a carwash, i would bet that would get it off for you...and it would prematurely get rid of the smell as opposed to letting it burn off.

good luck

 

Thanks to everyone for all the suggestions. I tried the powersprayer - either it wasn't that poweful, or it was already baked on - I couldn't get very much off at all.

Acetone probably would have worked had I got to the bag right away (within a few minutes of it sticking). It melted off the non-burnt parts but most of the dark, black parts were pretty well fused to the pipe.

Turns out the best advice was removing as much of it as possible with needle-nose plyers, then letting the remainder burn off. After a little over 11 days of driving through stop-and-go LA traffic as part of my hour-long commute, it's finally started to not smell so bad. I'm pretty confident it will be all gone in less than a week.

 

Well, it happened again. :( Driving home after all the winds, plastic bags taunting me at every turn. A little light white one flew right under and stuck right over the place where the old one was.

Oh well, now I know what to do. Jacked up the MINI, scraped the bag off (still had black stains from where the old one was!) and it still smells. Probably have another few weeks of driving around with the recirculate button on. :(

Guess I must be really unlucky.

 

Two bags in a weeek! Have you been driving through the check-out lanes in the grocery store?

 

A week? The previous one was last May.

 

Stupid reading comprehension...

 

just for the future break clean will melt plastic and is safe on metal.

or us a flame thrower

 

and no that is not me I am not that big of an idiot

 

I want to mount one of those flame throwers on the back of my MINI to deter tailgaters.

 

Here is the HOW-TO

http://forums.somethingawful.com/sho...0&pagenumber=1

Muhahahahahaa....MUHAHAHAHAHA

 

Wow, that's impressive. Don't think I want try that though!

I did try acetone and that sort-of-worked, on the parts that hadn't melted and turned black. It's really tricky applying it upside down under a vehicle because a) the fumes are horrible and b) you have to watch out so it doesn't drip on you.

Thanks for the tip though - I think I got most of it off with my needle-nose plyers and will just let the rest of it burn off.

 

Sad fact of modern life but this happens occasionally (plastic bag on tailpipe, not neighbor's kid with flamethrower). If you need the car to not stink in a hurry, a drill and rust removal wheel will sand the bag right off. They come as hinged wire brushes or plastic embedded with grit. Soaking in solvent first will soften the plastic, and no petroleum based solvent will damage stainless steel.