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The fumes of antifreeze are toxic. You do not want to breathe them. If you can smell it coming out of the vents, when the heater is on, it is likely to be the heater core. Bad news---that's a big job. If the leak is major, you will indeed find a pool on the passenger side floorboard. It is also possible that the leak is coming from a hose under the hood, a hole in the radiator, a bad cap on the reservoir, that doesn't hold pressure, or maybe even the water pump. If that was the case, you would smell hot coolant when the car was warmed up, whether the heater was on or not. If it's the heater core, you can try putting a stop-leak product in, but in my experience, that stuff rarely works, and it can clog up the radiator, so I don't recommend it.
A few years ago I had an old diesel Mercedes. The main reason I got rid of it was because the heater core leaked. Not enough to make the level go down in the bottle under the hood, but just enough to smell. I had already replaced it once, and was not about to do it again. After suffering through a typical winter in Northern Virginia (we call it cold, and it sometimes snows, but it's nothing like you get) with no heat (it actually worked, but I would not use it) I sold it cheap and bought a 740, which I fixed up, and still have.
If you want to replace your current winter wagon, what you need is to somehow get a car from down here. Good solid 740s, with no rust or major mechanical problems, are not hard to find for less than $1000, sometimes quite a bit less. If you know anyone going to the DC area, maybe they could fly down and buy one and drive it back.
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