Cold weather funny smell.
 

Wanted to share my experience in case anyone else has this issue.

It has finally gotten cold and I mean below 32. The Escalade started having this "semi-sweet almost plastic" smell when the heat was on. At first the smell almost reminded you of an electronic part getting too hot but, also reminded me of antifreeze but it didn't have that all too familiar "maple syrup" smell.

Time went on and the smell started to rear it's ugly head more and more but under the hood I couldn't find anything wrong and it would almost seem to come and go.

The next few days a nice bit of "steam" would come from the passenger side of the car under the hood... looked and couldn't really find anything leaking. This too would sort of come and go.

Well now a full week later she is steaming up and I found that the "quick connect" hose that runs from the heater core T to the water pump was leaking right at the end as it goes into the T. I was researching the part when the wife pulls in and it looked like the Escalade was majorly over heated as the hose finally separated from its quick connect end. (The part just north of the silver factory connector.) I took it off and got another from NAPA but that crazy "quick connect" looked almost like it was glued on and not a solid piece and when I put my nose to it, sure enough that sickly sweet plastic and antifreeze smell was on it.

It appears that the 2008 models of all GMC big vehicles, taho, suburban, escalade, etc. Seem to have this problem eventually. My advice if you start to smell that oh so plastic strange smell especially when the heat is on and you are stopped at a red light or stop sign. Have someone check that hose as it could be about to blow.

If this is a repeated post I apologize, I didn't find any direct posts and wanted to help anyone that may have this strange issue. It really is hard to explain to someone when it starts cause it must have been a very small hole that grew to a full blown blow-out.