I have a one month old whirlpool dryer. Suddenly about two weeks ago I began having this horrible odor when it would heat up to dry my clothes. I finally got the sears people out to check it and they cleaned a few things and looked it over. They thought it would be fine, but last night I tried to dry a load of clothes and it was awful. The smell is a mechanical smell. It is almost a chemical type smell. Anyway, my husband and the repairman checked the vent. It was brand new and totally clear. We do not have any smell in the laundry room until we turn the dryer on to dry clothes. You can turn it on the fluff cycle with no heat and you have no smell. That seems to narrow the problem possibly to the heating element or whatever dryers use to heat up. I have called Sears back and can't get a human on the phone, but I will keep trying. In the interim I thought you might could help. Oh, by the way, the repairman looked inside for anything foreign and couldn't find a thing, so that was ruled out. HELP PLEASE!!

There is probably something stuck in the box that houses the electric heaters. This is usually pretty easy to gain access to by removing a few screws that hold it in place. If you can'g get a service person to do the job you need to make sure the dryer is unplugged before removing the heater panel.