A few days ago I thought I was catching a whiff of burning electricals as I was driving but it came and went and, this being a near new Toyota with only 10K miles, I didn't pay it much mind. The other night I opened the door to our garage where I had parked my Toyota Camry Hybrid an hour previous and encountered a room full of foul-smelling, melted plastic type smoke! Thinking my car was having a meltdown I quickly moved it outside, far from our house.

When I checked under the hood I discovered a piece of thick black foam insulation from beneath the front cross bar (above the radiator) had come unglued and came to rest on the exhaust header where it melted in place and apparently smoked when the car got hot. Living on the top of a steep hill this coincided with my return home.

A paint scraper and a rag with acetone cleaned up the header. The loose foam strip was torn off.. seemed useless to begin with.

 

See the 'What's that burning smell?' thread:
https://www.greenhybrid.com/discuss/...ad.php?t=10031

 

I hope everyone with this problem is notifying Toyota. They really need a TSB for this!

 

All those burning foam strips out there are probably creating more pollution that out of the tailpipes... I ripped mine out when I saw the original thread, it was hanging on just by both ends but the center was completely unstuck.

 

Mine is sticking out a little as well, will need to take care of it before I have similar scare.

 

Mine did the same exact thing and I did the same to cure the problem.

Haven’t noticed any increased noise at all.

Mine came from Japan.

 

After 15K it finally happened to ours. Wife came home from work, pulled into the driveway (I happened to be outside) and as soon as she parked I smelled something weird. I read the original thread on this and that's the first thing I checked. Sure enough, that strip had come unglued and was sitting right by the 02 sensor. Looks like it JUST happened too. Right that junk out and threw it away. I've yet to figure out its purpose.

 

Someone is going to burn a car down and then maybe Toyo will figure out WTH this friggan foam is for. Mine has been gone since the first one failed on Wild Bills car.