.... LITERALLY.

this past weekend, i got stuck in some uphill traffic for about 20-30 minutes. i moved about 5-10 feet at a time so i never left first gear. about halfway up i noticed a smell that gradually got stronger until i got to the top, when smoke started coming from under my hood. this smell is the same as any other after ive driven, but ive never been able to smell it without having popped the hood and even then, it is very faint.

no indicator lights came on. and it wasnt the smell of a burning clutch, although when i got to the top of the hill, it felt like it wasnt gripping as well as it should. after about a half hour of rest the car was back to normal.

does anybody have any idea watupwitdat?!?!?!
anything similar happen to anyone?

Smelled like dead fish?

Sounds your clutch buddy :)

I'm pretty sure that it was your clutch cuz the same thing happened to me a while back...

My dad gave me a tip going up in with a manual. Put your e-brake on and put the car in nutral. And when your about to take off again put the car in gear and right when the clutch gets engaged you take off the e-brake. I do it and i haven't burnt a clutch uphill yet.

Sounds like you were slipping the clutch to hold you on the hill..... as said earlier use the brake for hill holding (regular brakes or e-brake), the clutch was never intended to hold you on a hill and will overheat quickly causing damage to the clutch and flywheel. You may begin to notice some roughness when releasing the clutch to get moving-that's from hot spots on the flywheel and pressure plate caused by the overheating. Expect to replace the clutch disk/pressure plate and have the flywheel turned in the not-too-distant future.

ken

i tried using the ebrake whenever i could but the problem was that, as slow moving as the traffic was, it was pretty much constant. meaning that when i did come to a complete stop, it was only for like 2 or 3 secs at a time... so yea i did use the clutch to hold me up a lot.

hmm... never heard of such thing. i think it's the clutch too.

definately the clutch then, if you were using it to hold you in place. I used to get the same metallic burning smell while driving a truck in some parts of NYC. Use the E-brake, or wait till you have a couple of car lenghts and then move up.