Last week, I flew out (from NJ to California) to visit my daughter, who bought an '07 S60 2.5T. I put upgraded tires on the car (I preordered from TireRack a set of Michelin Pilot Exalto PE2 tires in 225/50-16 in place of Michelin MXV4's in 205/55-16), and took her car to have them mounted when I arrived).

A few days later, we all went for a fun ride. One of the places we went was out to San Bernardino and took a sightseeing drive up a steep, switch-backed, cliff-edged, mountain road to Lake Arrowhead. The climb was up to over 5,000 feet, and for most of the climb I had the 5-speed automatic held back in 3rd and 4th gear, with the engine revving around 3 to 3.5K rpm.

However, when we'd stop at a few pull-overs to look at scenary (although I never shut the engine off, knowing that I want oil flowing through the turbo while it cooled down), there was a distinct burning smell coming from the car. It wasn't quite brake pad smell, but I wasn't sure. I couldn't locate the source, as it was all over the car. I thought tires, but they didn't feel unduly hot. Brake pads(?), but I wasn't doing much braking because this was the uphill run. I finally thought that maybe it was paint off the turbo. My daughter never drove the car hard (mostly city -- downtown L.A. -- traffic), at least until I came.

Later, going downhill, there was no smell. So maybe it just the turbo working hard (for the first time)?

Any comments or suggestions?