I used to work on VW's in the early 2000's and VW uses really heavy wax on all of the inner body panels to prevent rust. It's thick and nasty and smells very strong (especially in a hot climate). I used get that stuff all over me and it was tough to wash it off.
Sounds like cosmoline. My ex-military 1987 Land Rover Defender was slathered in the stuff, presumably by its previous owner, the British Army. It smells awful and coincidentally, a lot like cat piss. It's nearly impossible to remove, requiring a solvent like diesel fuel or mineral spirits.
Anyhow, back to the topic, I tend to agree with one of the commenters on the Dell forums. This doesn't sound like glue, or preservative, or actual cat piss. This sounds like a defect in the plastics manufacturing process, perhaps a bad batch of some component chemical. Not sure if these laptops came from China but tainted or counterfeit industrial products are common there. It's possible that a sub-contractor or sub-sub-contractor manufactured these plastic pieces and they slipped by QC. I can't imagine a laptop manufacturer even doing "smell testing" on their products and it's easy to see how this might have escaped notice by the assembly line workers, especially if they're working in a factory town with awful air pollution.
There was some type of grease that would ooze out of the drain ports on my fathers 2000 Golf. I never could figure out what it was. was that the same wax?
