HELP!!! Smell gasoline inside the car when cold start..
 

I think I really need some help here. Today, I cold started my car, the car started normally....and after 30 seconds or so, I smell a quite heavy scent of gasoline inside my car...and I checked out the under of my car...there is no gasoline leakage spot on the ground(except some engine oil leakage spot)....and I drive around the street..the scent disappeared....but once my cr stopped for a while...the scent of gasoline re-appeared....so....what's wrong with my car....please help me...I am kinda desperate here...thanx...
Kit

It sounds like you may have a fuel line, regulator, or dampner leaking. Start the car and look at these area immediately! Get a good flashlight, it will help to shine on the leaky fuel, if that is the problem.

Is the car full of gas? Could your vent hose on the tank be dry rotted and leaking?

Porsche is not known for the greatest of crimps on fuel lines and there have been quite a few cars with engine fires. Good luck.

Ski:

Could you please mention a little more about the vent hose? If I fill my gas tank up completely, I hear little gurgling noises coming out of the fuel filler. Then when I start driving, I can smell the gasoline.

TIA,
sm

BBQ,

I had a similar problem. It turned out to be the gasket for the fuel level sender. Porsche made an access hole in the rear hatch area for service of the sender. Once exposed you can understand how a bad gasket can allow the vapors into the cabin.


For Inspection, pull out your carpet in the rear hatch area and remove the sound deading. You will see the top of the sender and the fuel gauge wire connection.

You may or may not see whetting from the fuel, I did. Remove a couple of screws, pull out the sender and replace the gasket.

Even if this is not your problem, the gasket is cheap insurance as obviously your rubber seals are failing somewhere. An other area which I deemed could cause this problem would be in the filler neck or fuel vapor tank piping. I did not need to address these areas, thank goodness, as they require conciderable more effort to get to.

In California we have MTBE's in the fuel for air quality reasons, but this formula has caused a lot more issues than it has solved. IE, eating all the rubber seals, fuel lines, injectors. It has even become a big problem in our waterways (leaking jetski/boats).

I had to replace all the injectors in my Jeep Cherokee when they overnight became fuel fountains!

I have seen many posts on this issue and while I believe the Porsche engineers are supperior, I feel that the fuel system routing, is a poor and outright dangerous design.

Perhaps to the level of a recall, but I would not know how to initiate one.

One persons opinion.........or you could say "venting".

my bad,,,I meant the filler hose. There were a couple of posts on this on the old board.

Yeah, I've had a problem smelling fuel inside as well recently although it only seems to happen for awhile after filling the tank. No fuel smell in the engine compartment or any evidence of leaks in and around the various connections there. I do notice that I don't get the pressure release from the fuel tank when I take off the filler cap like I used to. Could this be caused from a bad gas cap seal?

mike

Mike,

These were also symptoms that I had.

Fuel vapors in the cab were the strongest when the tank was full (less area for vapor expansion).

With the fuel sender gasket leaking, the tank would not pressurize.

Sometimes just replacing the old gas cap with a new one fixes the problem

Thanks, I'll take a look at the sender. Would you see fuel leaking out of there with a full tank or would you only smell it.

The recess in mine was wet with fuel. The part # for the O Ring is 944 201 327 00. At my local dealer it cost $7.17us.

If not mistaken, there is a vent hose also inside the right rear quarter panel accesible by removing pass side rear carpet in hatch, mine came loose, enlarged on the end where it connects...

I cut about one inch, back to where the hose is "original size" and reattached it..

Terry