a sweet smell

Interesting. What year and how many miles?

 

if it was overheating you'd get a warning.

recent coolant service? hit any road debris?

 

Could be a pin hole in the heating core.

 

Sownz bed!

 

You say people smell it "around" your car. Only when outside or do you ever smell it in the interior?

 

Window washer fluid ????

 

do you park your car by itself? if not, i wouldnt worry about it. you say you checked all your fluids and they are ok. maybe you should have your parking lot mates do the same for their cars.

 

If it's a pin hole then the level of antifreeze would decrease very, very slowly. It would be hard to notice the change.

 

If you have a pinhole in the heater core, you will only smell it when you use the heater (or when the climate control uses the heater.) You wouldn't notice the level drop because only a few drops will be lost, and only when the heater is on. On the other hand, if it is the heater core, I wouldn't expect to smell it outside the car.

Try turning the heat way up, and see if you get the smell in the car.

 

Cool. Hope you diagnose the problem soon. Let us know.

 

there are two resivours for the cooling systems (two) on the Prius. The tank up by the inverter is for the Hybrid cooling system and there is another on the top of the radiator for the ICE cooling system. Also a very small leak that will just wet a small portion of the radiator is enough to "smell" things up.

 

Frank, you rule!