I have a problem with my 93 Honda Accord during the winter. If it's a cold morning and I start my car, it starts fine and idles fine but as I'm sitting in park warming the engine I can start to smell fuel fumes inside and outside of the car. As I start down the road, the fume smell disappears and if I come to a stop, the fumes comeback. It only happens on cold mornings. I had no problem with this during the summer months. It happened a little last winter, disappeared during the summer and now it's back. What could be the possible cause. I'm thinking the electronic choke is sticking open but, it idles fine after starting. Any suggestions?

12/19/2005 2:27:51 PM

Sounds like free air freshener to me. You'd pay 99cents for a little tree to do that.

12/19/2005 2:34:06 PM

keep ur windows up when u drive, ull be fine.

12/19/2005 2:42:11 PM

You've got no choke of any kind. You also don't have a "fifth" injector (cold start valve).

I'm wondering if your injector o-rings are leaking, and the problem becomes aggravated in cold weather for some odd reason.

There's really no other way I can think of for you to get that fuel smell other than a leak somewhere, as Honda doesn't have any special part of the injection system to provide enrichment (does it by modifying injector pulse width based on ambient air temp and coolant temp) for cold weather starting.

12/19/2005 3:04:57 PM

uh sure. I'm not really a honda guy so, I don't know much about those cars. I'll call the the honda dealership and see if they've have similar problems with that car.

12/19/2005 3:35:12 PM

I'm sure they'll give you an answer that won't cost you and an arm and a leg.

12/19/2005 3:51:13 PM

are you sure its not just b/c ur engine speeds up to warm up faster (at least i'm assuming it does it in your car)? so normally, you'd be at 1500 - 1800rpms going down the road, instead you're sitting still at those same revs, thus more exhaust and less ventilation. since you're sittin still, the exhaust could just cloud into your car, rather than flowing out around it. you don't notice this in the cold b/c your engine doesn't speed up to warm itself in the summer like it does in the winter.

just my two cents.

[Edited on December 19, 2005 at 4:01 PM. Reason : this is in case he's mistaking a slightly rich exhaust smell for straight fuel. ]

12/19/2005 4:00:43 PM

does it go away after the engine has warmed up??

12/19/2005 5:06:04 PM

is it a raw gas, or a rich exhaust smell? theres a huge difference

12/19/2005 5:12:43 PM

it's a raw gas smell. It only happens on very cold starts. It does go away after a cold start if i've been driving for a while. I've gone 5 miles and engine be at normal operating temperature and I can still smell it at a stop. If i turn the recycle on (fresh vent air off) it goes away. So, it's definetly pulling some kind of raw gas fume from the engine area.

12/19/2005 5:19:33 PM