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Whenever I turn on the air condition i smell burning rubber/plastic. I've been driving around like this for quite sometime.
-I do need a disc brake change, so it could be that?
-I also have an oil leak on the rear left valve cover
-The engine light sometimes comes on for a minute
-It overheats momentarily and sometimes the heat shuts off.

*1994 Mazda Mx3 gs, 1.8L v6

I think it could be a worn belt but im not sure, any help would be great

Thanks.

The water pump belt is connected to your power steering belt. The overheating problem may be unrelated.

I would check the belt, it is probably slipping and generating heat, melting the belt.

The brakes are probably not it.

And the check engine light needs to be checked, to be better diagnosed.

The burning smell might be related to the oil leak. Here I am assuming oil is leaking onto the exhaust manifold near the firewall and burning off. Since this is near where the blower gets fresh air (at the bottom of the front windshield on right side) maybe it is pumping the burned oil vapors into the car.

I don't think brakes or belts are causing the smell. Brakes would need to be dragging and get very hot before you would smell anything. Belts would squeal because they are being dragged across a seized accessory pulley and would likely break before you would smell burning rubber.

Overheats momentarily? Please explain. Do you just see the temp gauge reach hot and then it drifts back down? Or does the cooling system push coolant into the overflow tank or onto the ground? Does this happen when stopped in traffic or while traveling at highway speeds? This might be due to low coolant, bad thermostat, plugged radiator or bad radiator fan or radiator fan controls.

Heat shuts off? Does this mean the blower stops or just that cool air is suddenly circulated with the heater controller in the heat mode?

davmac wrote: I don't think brakes or belts are causing the smell. Brakes would need to be dragging and get very hot before you would smell anything. Belts would squeal because they are being dragged across a seized accessory pulley and would likely break before you would smell burning rubber.

The pulleys used to tension the belt are not ribbed, they only contact the top(smooth) side of the belt, IIRC. I have swapped the washers/bolts for the tensioner pulleys around thinking they were the same. They are not. My belts made almost NO noise, but the power steering/alternator weren't working well/at all and I smelled burning rubber. The pulley was locked in place and the belt was burning out on it. To this day the pulley is nice a shiny! I have had a couple people ask me if it was new.

This is most likely not the case here, but I just wanted to clarify from personal experience.