A few months ago, my friend's car began getting extremely poor mileage (in the teens on the highway, worse in the city). It also has a strong smell of gas from the tailpipe. It smells after it is started in the morning, and even after warming up to operating temperature and driving a long distance.
The owner changed the plugs and wires and when that didn't help, he took it to the dealer. The dealer "adjusted the coolant temperature sensor" if that's even possible (it cost a few hundred dollars and the car still stinks of gas and the mileage is just as bad as before). They say it's not likely to be the O2 sensor, but they don't know what to do next. I think they're trying to get him to go away because they said they'll just start throwing parts at the problem until it is fixed (I would have asked to speak to the service manager at that point).
So, my question is: has anyone here had this problem before? This sounds to me like a leaking fuel injector (or injectors...). Is there an easy way to test the injectors without having the dealer just replace them? If not, I would most likely tell my friend to take the car to an independant shop I have used before to see if they can diagnose the problem; this dealer obviously doesn't know what's up.
Thanks for the help... I drive a Honda and the Honda usenet group has saved me cash from unecessary repairs MANY times. My buddy is not computer savvy and had no idea the newsgroups existed.