i have a 00 civic with a short ram on it, recently i took the car in for sevice at honda and now i smell some strange smell after i turn on the heat or i turn off the car, its like this spice smell, its really bad... i opened the hood and sure enough its coming form my intake filter, is this normal, or is it a sign to get a new filter?

thanks

 

From the intake? This sounds more likely like a coolant smell to me, maybe they topped up your coolant at honda and some spilled out.

 

when i smell the intake i smell the smell, but they did top up the coolant, that could be it, how often do short ram filters need to be changed? its a generic fileter that came with it , no name

 

You replace it when its dirty, simple as that.

 

does it smell like butterscotch? Thats what some people say burning coolant smells like, but to me it smells like celery.

 

lol, celery has a smell?

 

if you took it in for service they may have cleaned your air filter. short ram intake filters are reusable and you can buy different cleaning solutions to use on the filter. It could very well be some cleaning crap not completely rinsed off.
I am totally winging it though cause i have never heard of a stinky filter

 

Could be, though dealerships normally dont clean aftermarket reusable filters. Maybe they spilled something in your engine bay when they were topping up your fluids and whatever they used to clean it ended up on your filter.

 

yea it does smell like butterscotch ...a really nasty kind tho.. and can i get a K& n short ram filter? do they make thsoe?

 

isn't celery like 99% water? lol what does that smell like...

 

go handle celery then smell your hands. I find it burning coolant smells like that.

 

i'm wondering what kinda service you did at the dealer ...just a lube? did they clean out your throttle? cuz i'm thinking that it might be just engine oil on the exhaust, makes a really "spicy" smell, oil takes a while to burn off whereas coolant would have evaporated before you got home.

 

did a type 4