Exhaust smell

My wife bought a 93 new back in march of 2003 and from day 1 the car has a smell when running. The dealer said that she had to use 93 octane and when that didn't reduce the smell he said that she had to use gas from the same company be it sunoco or some other brand other than Mobil. When that didn't work he said it takes time for the car to break in for it to go away. She has 15,000 miles and stil the obnoxious rotten egg smell. Does anyone have an idea as to what this could be. Is it a bad catalytic converter? I appreciate any insights that you can share.

Jeff snipped-for-privacy@optonline.net

Reply to
Jeff Sloane
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As a personal opinion, backed by nothing other than feelings, they're feeding you a line unless they can back it up.

Rotten eggs is hydrogen sulfide. Produced by the catalytic converter.

Either the converter is bad, or fuel is getting into it (I think that this can do this) and you possibly have a bad cat converter because of it (they're not designed to have a fuel flow through them, however inadvertently). Since this *might* be a result of very rich fuel flow, I'd wonder if the mileage is good or bad, and if that might or might not be a source.

this is speculation, though.

Harvey

Reply to
Harvey White

In article , sabre36 @optonline.net spouted forth into alt.autos.saab...

Lots of short journeys, and no real highway blasts can cause the "Egg" smell with a Cat.

Best thing for you, you wife, and the Cat, would be to go for a nice long fast country road blast.

Give it a "Swedish tuneup". If the smell persists after that, then it will be time to consider the problems of the CAT further down the line. If the car has been overfueling, that cause damage to the CAT. But a higher than needed Octane fuel shouldn't do too much damage. Modern electronics in engine management should take that into account and deal with it by adjusting the timing and fueling to compensate.

I think the dealer is feeding you a line, although some Low Sulphur fuels may help.

Reply to
MeatballTurbo

Hello,

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has a FAQ page and one of the questions refers to "a rotten egg smell from the exhaust". It attributes this to the use of fuel that contains methanol which causes a sulphur smell from the exhaust. Their suggested remedy is to change the place where you purchase your fuel.

I don't know if this is the case with your car as you have done 15,000 miles with the same symptom.

T.L.

Reply to
Turbo Lite

So it is a 9-3, not a 93

Methanol does NOT contain sulphur, poor quality gasolene does. The sulphur in the fuel burns to H2S (hydrogen sulphide) and CS2 (carbon sulphide), both smell bad.

-------- MH

Reply to
MH

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