Appears my car has collected a plastic supermarket bag underneath on the exhaust system at some stage recently. Unfortunately whilst the majority of the bag has since departed it has left enough behind to create a strong burning smell. A call to the dealer suggested this as the likely culprit when I described the smell and a quick free visit confirmed the same. Regrettably it has left behind a layer on the "flexible" hosing bulge which my dealer says can't be readily scrapped off and is best left to eventually burnoff. Guess I will need to do a very long drive to assist the burnoff as its still there from a couple of days of short drives. Must say Heidelberg Mitsubishi were very helpful in pinpointing the likely cause by phone and subsequently confirming the same when I popped in this morning for a quick look.

In theory, you could get under it with a cigarette lighter if you're brave and there is no grease/oil/flammable anything nearby and you have a fire extinguisher just in case? Hopefully they didn't put anything too flammable next to the exhaust when they designed the car.
*If you decide to do this I am not responsible for anything catching fire*

Nope. Only option you got now is once car is cold get under there and scrape as much off as possible. If sand it off if you have too. The more you get off the quicker the smell will go away. I hateva mate pull a prank on me many years ago. Tired a plastic bag round exhaust. Exhaust heats up and it stick like crazy once it melt and freaked smells bad. Good prank if you don't like somebody. Once you clean up it takes two weeks for smell to go.

Cheers guys. Certainly does stink; the service guy knew the smell as soon as he opened the reception door. Guess it is better than having an electrical or fluid issue.

I'll pass on the lighter idea; Mrs M would have kittens if she saw me with a flame under the car.

Did you return the prank to your mate at a suitable interval?

Used to come across this all the time at holden.

Jack up the car and support it and get out a heat gun. (Make sure you cover up and wear goggles and a cap). We used an Oxy torch but given you don't have access to a hoist I don't reccommend it. Maybe if you talk to mits they may do it for you.