Car shaking and burning smell while driving
A vehicle shaking and emitting a burning or gas smell at highway speeds points to severe mechanical or fuel system malfunctions. Ignoring these symptoms prevents safe operation and can lead to sudden engine failure or fire hazards.
What people tried
Every workaround mentioned in the threads below. We haven’t tested any of them — and nobody here is claiming they worked.
Found another way around this?
Share your steps and trade-offs so fellow engineers don't have to reinvent the wheel. No account required.
- 1Having the car towed to a repair shopDid this help you?
- 2Checking under the hood for loose or pinched fuel linesDid this help you?
- 3Driving the car home slowly despite the symptomsDid this help you?
- 4Restarting the vehicle to see if behavior changesDid this help you?
- 5Parking the car and walking home to arrange for a tow truckDid this help you?
In their words
Unedited, grouped by where they were said, most upvoted first within each place, each linked to the thread it came from.
“2012 Chevy Equinox struggled to turn on when I turned the key. It then started shaking / had a burning smell around the 50-60 mph range”source ↗
“hi, my mom’s car randomly started making a crunching noise as we were driving and there was a vague gas smell we noticed while we were inside the car.”source ↗
“we popped the hood and the gas smell got much stronger.”source ↗
“So, I’m going to put this in steps so it might be easier to follow than one big paragraph.”source ↗
“Does anyone have any ideas on what this could be? I’m going to have to call a tow to come get my car obviously, but don’t want to be scammed for something crazy expensive when it might just be an easy fix.”source ↗
Where this came up
People with this problem also raised
- 4Why is there a bad smell coming from my car vents?
- 8Why does my car smell like gas when I accelerate?
- 3Why is there a raw fuel smell and rough idle when stopped?
- 9Car shakes at high speeds even with good tires and alignment
- 3Cylinder misfire and white smoke from exhaust
- 17Why does a car shake when idling after sitting for years?