Hi all,

I have a 300 TDI Auto Land Rover Discovery one I have a problem with a smell of burning rubber coming from somewhere on the car when you drive hard or it is working hard. I’m not sure what it is. I’ve checked all the oil levels in the diffs transfer box, etc they are all clean and fresh

I did some research and some people said it can be the bonnet insulation getting hot, but that was all okay

However, I’ve recently changed my cambelt (it was smelling before the change) and the old one was ready to snap it was half the size of the new one and there was fluff all in the timing casing. I changed all the pulleys even the main crank pulley, however, the thing I am worried about is could the belt be tilting and rubbing on something?

Thanks

More than likely it was starting to fray and come apart, it might be original.

If you can't see anything abnormal, signs of it rubbing etc then you're probably ok.

Glad you caught it in time
In saffa land we change the cambelt at 60 000 km's. The tensioner bolt and bearing assembly was a recall for us a long long time ago
The bolt hole the tensioner gets tightened to is just aluminium and any slight over tightening leads to that bolt hole going oval and the pulley will then off centre with very similar "fluff" residual or even snapping within a couple of thousand

I include a link to explain my maybe not so concise rambling

Henry_b said:

More than likely it was starting to fray and come apart, it might be original.

If you can't see anything abnormal, signs of it rubbing etc then you're probably ok.

Click to expand...

I’ve changed it, but I’m still getting the same burning rubber smell

Padda.116 said:

I’ve changed it, but I’m still getting the same burning rubber smell

Click to expand...

Did you get to the bottom of this? It sounds as though we're in a very similar situation! I've had the same burning smell when the Disco (1994 300 tdi Auto, 195k miles) is working hard and going up hill for well over a year, possibly two. I don't do much mileage at all, hence it hasn't been a major issue. Somebody suggested it could be the cam belt as during my 8 year ownership I have not had it done and have no record of it being done in the past. Going to change it anyway as it needs doing! Other suggestions for the burning smell seemed to point to torque converter? That'll be the next thing to look into if cam belt doesn't work. Good luck with yours!