E30 Zone

Hi,

Ever since I bought my iS (over a year ago) there's been a vague sense of petrol smell in the cabin. Sometimes it's strong, sometimes it's barely even there and people don't notice unless I point it out! Seems much worse when you first start up of a morning, or if you come back to the car after it's been parked in a car-park for a few hours...

It had a brand new tank about 6 months ago, a new hose into the tank, new seals around the fuel pump removal panel, new filter and new fuel lines going to and from the filter.

The smell seems to be originating from the windscreen blower vents, although obviously it's quite hard to localise a smell! It also seems stronger on teh left side of the car, and if you open the bonnet it seems to be coming from the inlet manifold side-ish...although that's hardly suprising, since there's no fuel stuff on the other side!

There are no obvious leaks, and fuel economy seems OK.

What else could I try replacing?

Cheers.

a leak

sorry could not resist

Parked on a garage forcourt?

No sorry neither could I

delphincabby wrote:a leak

sorry could not resist

That's the correct short answer. Any smell of petrol will be coming from a leak.
For a slightly longer answer, it sounds like you have a leak from either the rubber fuel hose to the fuel rail, or from one of the 'O' ring sealed joints on the fuel rail to the injectors or to the fuel pressure regulator.

I had a similar problem with a petrol smell. Turns out one of the pipes under the bonnet had split where you could not easily spot it. Check all joints under the bonnet are sound, undo them check and refit.

or a leaking tank!

My money is on the two inch bit of hose in the engine bay that connects the feed pipe to the fuel rail. They always perish on M42's.

i took my iS to the garage with exactly the sameproblem, they couldnt find anything wrong with it and said if it comes back bring it back down again. a month later, it happens again, i took the car back down again and they still couldnt find any leak. all they basically said was well it must be because its an old car.

HI, had a simillar problem with my e30, which turned out to be a tiny split in the fuel pipe running to the spray rail, the smell as you said was worse on start up, as when it was warm the fuel from the leak evaporated quicker..

check ur injectors for leaks.....could be the O rings or even the body itself.

Mine had a cracked injectors and it was over the distributor......a fire hazard.

I had the same problem in my diesel turd, faint smell of petrol was slightly odd and off putting in a diesel, Finall tracked it down to a leaky engine I'd had in the boot for a few days! Boy did I feel dumb.