I've put on 1000 miles duringthe first week of owning my Tahoe, and I continue to experience the following situation. After coming off the interstate, andstopped at thetraffic light at the bottom of the ramp, I smell the odor of burning oil. It's not crankcase oil smell, this is definately burning oil. Has anyone else experienced this? At the moment, it's too snowy and wet to crawl under to investigate, but there appears to be no smoke or vapor coming from the engine compartment area with the hood open. Any ideas?

 

I had a smell as well, but it was gone after a couple of days and I have not smelt it since. I figured mine was the new engine stuff burning off. After a month I would not think that would be the case for you. If you park in a garage, do you have any liquids on the floor? Does your oil dipstick show any loss of oil, or possibly power steering fluid? Thats about all I can think of for now. Good Luck

 

Thanks. The dipstick shows a full crankcase, but I haven't checked the power steering or transmission. Thanks for the reminder. Maybe I need to give it a little longer time, but you'd think after a thousand miles, all the coatings, and oil would have burned off the hot components.

 

Most all of my new vehicles have had the burning/hot smell. It is usually from the new parts, and the parts on the exhaust under carriage just burning off residues. Should go away shortly.

 

The smell is caused by a preservative called Cosmoline that is applied to the undercarriage of the vehicles at the factory to prevent rail dust particles from attaching and promoting rust.
Some Cosmoline is applied to the exhaust system and as the vehicle is driven the preservative is burned away and causes the hot “burning oil smell”, normally after a hundred miles or so the odor disappears but in some cases a glob or thick application of Cosmoline can take some more time to completely burn away.

 

My smell lasted a couple weeks.