smoke from ignition barrel

[80smaniac]

can you help?

was sat in traffic driving to work when i caught this whiff of smoke and saw a swirly grey/white trail of smoke coming from my ignition barrel--it then swirled out from opposite side of steering wheel so i panicked and pulled over,the smoke stopped but there was this awful stink of what smells like burnt rubber--rang hubby who came to find me in his car and he was concerned about the burnt smell so towed me home to make sure car ok--not done it since but still awful stink lingering

--any ideas please

[DanGull]

No idea what that could be - hope someone can help you.

What mark of Fiesta are we talking about here?

[amarokuk]

can you help?

was sat in traffic driving to work when i caught this whiff of smoke and saw a swirly grey/white trail of smoke coming from my ignition barrel--it then swirled out from opposite side of steering wheel so i panicked and pulled over,the smoke stopped but there was this awful stink of what smells like burnt rubber--rang hubby who came to find me in his car and he was concerned about the burnt smell so towed me home to make sure car ok--not done it since but still awful stink lingering

--any ideas please

This souinds like a problem with the ignition switch. The likeliest cause is a bad connection inside the switch causing electrical arching, a spark if you like, in the confined space of the switch it is heating up the plastics or possibly the grease inside for lubrication and it is starting to burn. I woiuld get it to a garage and have it checked even though it may seem ok now (the act of removing and rienserting the key may have restored the connection) but there is the potential it could happen again better to be safe than sorry. Thats the worst case scenario really it could also be a simple loose connection into the ignition switch or any other connections in there that's arching and frying the plastics/rubber nearby which is simple to fix and insulate.

[Big Bob]

This souinds like a problem with the ignition switch. The likeliest cause is a bad connection inside the switch causing electrical arching, a spark if you like, in the confined space of the switch it is heating up the plastics or possibly the grease inside for lubrication and it is starting to burn. I woiuld get it to a garage and have it checked even though it may seem ok now (the act of removing and rienserting the key may have restored the connection) but there is the potential it could happen again better to be safe than sorry. Thats the worst case scenario really it could also be a simple loose connection into the ignition switch or any other connections in there that's arching and frying the plastics/rubber nearby which is simple to fix and insulate.

That sounds about right to me, I've had it in the past on an old Cavalier, stripped the ign switch & cleaned the contacts, I doubt you could strip a modern switch though. :(

[Andy09]

Sorry to bump an old thread but I'm just curious what mark fiesta this was?

It's just that on my drive home tonight I appeared to have a similiar incident. I was driving along when I heard a snap kinda noise (the kind you hear on lighting a gas hob), shortly followed by a definite smell of burning lasting only a few seconds. I couldn't see any smoke (it was dark) and I'm hoping it was just coincidence, burning smell may have been in the area and the snap could've been the rain hitting certain part of the car (though it didn't sound quite right!).

It made me think of this post and I guess I'll just have to keep an eye on it!