New owner of rich running, petrol smelling 325i

Post Tue Jul 19, 2005 11:27 pm

Hi there guys (& girls?)! Hope one of you can help. I have just bought a lovely 325i. It hunts a bit and has kangaroo petrol at low engine speeds in 2nd/3rd gear. It also smells very bad of fuel and gives me a sore throat! I have been told it could be idle valve. I have disconnected lead and engine seems to run a bit better then goes lumpy when plugged back in. Has anyone suffered from same problem and know a good solution to save speanding time and money replacing parts that ain't broke? Thanks for your help!

Post Wed Jul 20, 2005 9:53 am

Welcome to the zone, mate....

Because you can smell petrol inside the car when your driving it probably means that there's a fuel leak at the front. Its probably worth checking the flexible fuel hoses (feed and return) that run up from underneath the passenger foot well to the injector rail and the front of the engine. These tend to perish over time. If its bad enough you'll have low or variable fuel pressure at the injectors. Mine had a similar problem. Its cheap to buy 2m of fuel hose and 4 jubilee clips....

Good luck

Post Wed Jul 20, 2005 12:05 pm

Have a search on the forum, most people will say rich running is due to a faulty thermostat causing the engine to run in cold running mode all the time and overfuelling. Bit like running on the choke..

Post Wed Jul 20, 2005 12:24 pm

sabrje wrote:Welcome to the zone, mate....

Because you can smell petrol inside the car when your driving it probably means that there's a fuel leak at the front. Its probably worth checking the flexible fuel hoses (feed and return) that run up from underneath the passenger foot well to the injector rail and the front of the engine. These tend to perish over time. If its bad enough you'll have low or variable fuel pressure at the injectors. Mine had a similar problem. Its cheap to buy 2m of fuel hose and 4 jubilee clips....

Good luck

:yeahthat: Celvin had this problem...It wasn't obvious to the eye either!!!! look over the pipes closely

Post Wed Jul 20, 2005 7:12 pm

Thanks to all you guys for your highly-valued input. I will be able to put the car on a ramp at the weekend so I will be thoroughly checking the fuel pipes. I might invest in a thermostat and do that at the same time. However, I notice none of you have mentioned the idle valve. Is this becuase you all doubt it is the root of the cause?

Thanks once again.

Mark

Post Wed Jul 20, 2005 8:59 pm

Riviera wrote:However, I notice none of you have mentioned the idle valve. Is this becuase you all doubt it is the root of the cause?

Its because I know nothing about ti!!!!

you dont need the car on the ramp to check the fuel lines we are on about, they are next to the inlet manifold.. the only reason I mentioned it is because this has been a problem before with a mate of mines E30

Post Wed Jul 20, 2005 9:32 pm

Try this guide that Andy_magic did

http://www.e30zone.co.uk/modules.php?na ... ic&p=81184

Hope this helps

Matt

Post Wed Jul 20, 2005 10:51 pm

As per last time guys, that is great advice! Glad I don't need to crawl underneath the car and get dirty now! Should I also mention though that the car smells rich when running from behind? The tick-over seems a bit low and it is a tad lumpy.

Post Wed Jul 20, 2005 10:56 pm

As per last time guys, that is great advice! Glad I don't need to crawl underneath the car and get dirty now! Should I also mention though that the car smells rich when running from behind? The tick-over seems a bit low and it is a tad lumpy.

Post Wed Jul 20, 2005 10:57 pm

Hi guys ...have another thread running with the same sort of thing ... just replaced the head and have lumpy idle and really strong exhaust fumes .... let me know if you have any success ......

G

Post Sat Jul 23, 2005 6:08 am

the smell of fuel (if not the fuel lines leaking) could also be the evaporative emmissions control cannister, this is located in various places depending on the model but is basically a charcole filter cannister that catches the fuel vapours emmitted form your fuel tank etc, and burns them off in your exhaust manifold, if its knackered the whole car will smell of fuel especially on a warm morning.

And finally a car running rich would not always smell of fuel (even at the back) as it is a fuel/air ratio not just the amount of fuel going into your engine.(lean, less fuel to air, rich more fuel to air i.e. too much fuel or too little air) thus the problem may also be with the amount of air going into your engine (check the AFM is working correctly)

mrlee

Post Sat Jul 23, 2005 11:19 am

I have a similar problem to this, my 325i tourer is averaging 15 mpg, it is not buring sufficient fuel, and smells of fuel at the exhaust. Also poor idle, 400rpm, also 30% down on power, always seems to be holding back. (Had 2 E30 325i's before so know how they should go) I have attempted to have a diagnostics test, but they cannot find any fault codes apart from a suspect Air Flow meter.

Problem is I've replaced the air flow meter 3 times, and although there are some small differences eg.. one idels at 400 another 600, all do not fix the problem. Had a load of flannel from one of the garages that cannot do a diagnostics if air flow meter is not working properly, but I thought diagnostics was about reading fault codes in the ECU so sounds like bollox to me.

If any of you gents finds a solution let me know and vis versa.

Cheers

Post Sat Jul 23, 2005 1:07 pm

Jos wrote:Have a search on the forum, most people will say rich running is due to a faulty thermostat causing the engine to run in cold running mode all the time and overfuelling. Bit like running on the choke..

If your thermostat is faulty, you should be able to see this from the temperature gauge.
More likely is a problem with the blue ECU water temp sensor, telling the ECU that the car is cold when its hot. This is located on the thermostat outlet elbow, but a bit inaccessable behind the brown temp sensor. (Easier to change if you remove this one first).