Gas smell after very short run?

Could be either the rich mixture typical of startup or it could be a fuel leak under the hood when cold. Those fuel leaks can be devilishly hard to see, but if you get a repeat of the gasoline smell it is worth sticking your head under the hood to see if the smell is stronger there or if it may just be from the tailpipe. I had an engine fire from a leaky injecotr once, so I take those smells rather seriously now.

Mike

Is it a stale egg smile?

possibly the ct/short journey effect nd poor qulity petrol

Still under warranty? Talk to your dealer service shop. They should know it that is a problem or not.

oh puhleeeeeeze - is this a chicken little competition?

when a car starts, you have to dump gas because the motor is not warm, thus the fuel doesn't fully vaporize, thus you need excess gas to get sufficient vapor density to burn. if you dump gas, then turn the motor off? where is the gas now? in the inlet, and /not/ being sucked into the motor. so where does it go? it evaporates back out of the air intake. thus you smell gas!!!

so that's all the o.p. is experiencing - a few seconds of excess gas because he hasn't warmed the motor. utterly trivial.

Maybe so, but it still does not rule out a gasoline leak. The risk is too great to just shrug it off.

Mike

well, the neighbor kid could have been stealing gas too and spilled some. or theoretically, the vehicle /could/ have been drilled by one of these:

but somehow i doubt it. just like i doubt fuel leak on a sub-year old car made by a manufacturer with an excellent track record on this stuff. especially when we're told that the car has been run for less than 60 seconds and that we know about excess mixture on start-up, etc...

seriously dude, look at the big picture and assign probabilities.

Seriously dude, look at the big picture and assign probabilities, then look again and assign possibilities to check when the probabilities aren't the cause.....

DaveD

I'm most suspecting fuel injector failure - separation at the plastic/metal junction. That can occur at any age and mileage, often shows up when cold and may stop leaking when warm, and I've seen quite a few in my time... including the one that set my Nissan on fire before I could put the new injector in. On a nearly new car the possibility of a construction defect can't be discounted either; that is why the warranty exists. I am not advocating a witch hunt, just due diligence for something that can easily send the car up in flames.

Personally, I would feel less silly looking for a leak than I would looking at the charred remains and trying to answer the question, "why didn't you check it out?" To each their own.

Mike

but not so strong that you were tempted to open the hood and check for a fuel leak?

Since the OP apparently does not have the mechanical knowledge or skills to look for the cause of the smell the only real solution is to take it to the dealer and have it checked out for safety if nothing else.

hey, can i have another "tempest in a teakettle" drama queen over here please? this one's simply not histrionic enough.

yeah, we get torched hondas reported here all the time!

as reported by the o.p. the following day. oh, wait,...

try rebooting your machine mike - the facts indicate a logic problem.

The point is it certainly can happen - there is nothing inherent in Hondas that exempt them from the possibility of engine fire. The smell of gas (should *never* occur with port injected engines) is a big red flag. Something is wrong.

Mike

no dude - did you not read what i explained about exactly /why/ it occurs after a very short run like this??? true, it shouldn't occur after a warmup, and in that case, you /would/ investigate, but after a few seconds cold? gas stink is /inevitable/, and for the reasons stated.

Thus spake jim beam :

Actually, I really suspected you're observation. After all, I have been around the block a couple of times. It's just that I've never experienced this with modern cars. Of course, this is probably the first time in more than a few years that I've only run a car for a few seconds.

And yeah, an 11 month old car? A leak? If the Fit is that shitty, maybe I should trade it in on, say, a Suburban. I'm sure they're holding their value quite well.

Thus spake ACAR :

No. But Mr. Beam has pretty much nailed it, as far as I'm concerned. I would think that if it were a leak, I'd smell it by the time I got to work. Which, right now, is 1.85 miles away and takes me 5 minutes on a good day and 7 minutes on a bad day.

that kind of driving sucks for vehicle life - engine [etc] never gets to warm thoroughly [takes about 20 minutes]. you'd do the car [and yourself] a favor if you considered doing that commute by bike.

Nope - and if you give it a try you will notice there is no gas smell unless you have a fuel leak. In fact, it makes no difference whether the engine is running rich (cold) or is warm. The fuel sprayed into the intake - whatever amount - is ingested with every stroke and stops before the engine stops turning, meaning the fuel is cleared away and never escapes.

In the old carburetor days it was common to smell fuel when cold, especially if the engine was flooded. The fuel collected in the carb throat, more so when cold because of the choke, and the fuel did not stop when the ignition was turned off. TBI also injects mighty close to the outside air and can produce a gas smell (although not what I would describe as "strong"), but not port injection. Lord knows I've changed enough air filters after pulling the cold car into the garage to know there is never more than a faint trace of gas after the filter is removed, and none before.

Mike

rubbish.

not when the engine is cold. wet fuel lines everything south of the injectors. and if you start, then stop immediately, it never gets warm enough for it to instantly vaporize, therefore it /cannot/ get "cleared away".

then you're either not running on gasoline or you're in denial!