Not sure where to post this, but the other day I was driving on the thruway when I noticed my SES light, then smelt strong engine coolant, pulled over and popped the hood to let the heat out, checked the coolant level and it was fine. Drove it to my destination and noticed the floor of the truck was getting real hot. Plugged in the scan tool and the SES light came from the cat converter. Gonna replace the old cat, which has been rattling, but no idea where the smell of anti-freeze came from? Time to time I can still smell it.

 

I have the same problem in my 2000. I have asked around and herd it was the heater core, but thats not official. When you turn on the defrost do you smell it? Thats when i smell mine the most.

 

has any coolant leaked into the cabin that you can see? it might be the heater core if so. I'd check the carpet to see if it's coolant soaked or not.
Although, if it was the heater core your heat would more then likely be intermittent (I know because the heater core blew on my old car and spewed coolant all over my passenger side floor lol).

 

Any coolant in the oil? or coming out the tailpipe? Also I'd check the plugs. If your spark plugs looked steam cleaned it could be a head gasket. And of course could just be heater core.

 

If your coolant is mixed with your oil I'd say good luck with that. It's never a cheap or easy fix when that happens!

 

I'm praying it's a heater core and NOT a blown head gasket.. I have a 2-3 year old rebuilt engine with only about 30k miles on it so I hope it isn't a head gasket.
That's a few interesting things I'll check tomorrow; carpet, oil, tail pipe, spark plugs, turn the heater on for smell.. although I had my defroster on tonight and didn't smell anything. Also the floor isn't heating up anymore. The day this happened I was testing out my AC to see if it was working, and it wasn't, so I'm sure I had to heater on at least briefly. I don't understand if this is in any connection with the cat converter code that came up? It all happened simultaneously.. SES light, then smell of coolant.

Thank you all for your input.