Burning rubber smell

[spicyhotone]

Last night, I (unusually) used the self-charge option on the car to put some extra charge into the Battery from the engine. I drove like this for about 5 miles, and when I returned home there was strong burning rubber smell around the car. I'd smelt this before over the Summer after driving over the Applecross peninsula pass, which involves a long steep climb. Then I wasn't sure it was my car, as there were lots of hot cars at the top, but last night was definitely mine.

I'm wondering if it's possibly some rubber mounting straps for the exhaust system? I've done 17K miles in the car now (PHEV variant), and the engine is fairly well run in now, and I've used the car for a number of long (hundreds of mile runs) in HV mode, so wouldn't really expect any "New engine" smells any more, so a little concerned.

 

Unfortunately didn't have time to go round the car to get a proper sense of where the smell was coming from, but it did seem strong around the back, and it did feel quite warm around the back. It reminded me a bit of my last diesel car which would get very hot exhaust system and slight burning smell whilst doing a regen of the particulate filter system, but I don't think the RAV4 (petrol) has this or does it?

Anyone else had anything similar?

[forkingabout]

Maybe the petrol particulate filter burning of deposits.

[TonyHSD]

Perhaps a better research on us forums where these cars are ultra popular. Burning rubber smell is never a good sign and when happens there is definitely something wrong. You can check your tyre pressures meanwhile, when tyres are softer than normal after longer drive they tend to heat up and can produce hot rubber smell like. 

[spicyhotone]

2 hours ago, TonyHSD said:

Perhaps a better research on us forums where these cars are ultra popular. Burning rubber smell is never a good sign and when happens there is definitely something wrong. You can check your tyre pressures meanwhile, when tyres are softer than normal after longer drive they tend to heat up and can produce hot rubber smell like. 

Pretty sure it wasn't tyres - short low speed drive on wet roads - and never smelt it when running in EV mode.

[TonyHSD]

5 minutes ago, spicyhotone said:

Pretty sure it wasn't tyres - short low speed drive on wet roads - and never smelt it when running in EV mode.

Have you checked your exhaust pipes are clear of anything like plastic bags or any other plastic trapped (glued) on them.? I had once that happened to one of my cars and after exhaust got hot the smell of burning plastic was unbearable. 👍