[Trig]

Seen several postings about burning smell or smoke from the engine area.
My Gen 3 and Gen 2 H6 engines had the front inner axle boots directly over the
catalytic convertors. When the boot splits open (due to aging) their grease flips
directly on the them. Those get super hot and smoke and burning smell is strong.
Seems like a poor design choice to place a flexible bellow over a super-hot component.

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[traildogck]

The H4 and H6 platforms have some challenges when it comes to certain things.

It's awful hard to get axles and exhaust to play nice with a horizontal motor. Add an engine subframe and a wheel well and it gets even worse. Many would say that spark plugs and valve covers right up against a unibody frame rail is a poor design choice. One might also say a intercooler mounted on the top of a heat generating motor is a poor design choice.

They all are simply functions of what we call a Subaru.

 

[AWDFTW]

...and?

 

[kiwisix]

Just had the same issue and aroma on 07 outback noticeable walking by the car after parking. Looked underneath and found green grease splattered around from a bad boot. 10 days after replacing the cv boot the reek has receded!

 

[miker104]

There's no smell quiet like Subaru CV grease on a hot exhaust!

 

[Trig]

Aaahhhh, the smell of CVJ grease sizzling on the exhaust system.
Takes weeks to get rid of. No matter how it's cleaned off, grease
remains somewhere and has to burn off. It's what makes a Subaru
a Subaru. BTW , owned 5 of them. 3 currently.

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[Logie_OBXT]

Yep, just rebooted the driver's side on mine. Just about three years after the passenger side went. I'm just under 140k miles.

Fairly easy fix, especially since I had just done all the suspension work, so all the bolts had been broken free recently. But upon reinspection this past weekend, I found that I had not tightened the cup seal band tight enough and it was leaking grease. A quick rebanding and making sure it was tight solved it. But that also meant cleaning more grease off of things.