[Veets]

Tonight, my wife went to the garage to take out the garbage and mentioned that she smelled gas. This was not a faint odor, but a distinct raw fuel smell which was noticeable throughout the garage. I poked around a bit and noticed the smell was mostly coming from the left side air intake of my Boxster. There was no smell in the cabin - only from the outside, and no dripping was seen underneath the car. I drove it to work today so the car was fully warmed up. I have occasionally noticed a bit of a fuel smell in the garage at times, but it was never this strong and I always thought it was from my lawn mower. Of course, I am getting it checked out as soon the dealer can get me in, but would like to ask if others have noticed anything like this.

 

[Porsche2018]

Tonight, my wife went to the garage to take out the garbage and mentioned that she smelled gas. This was not a faint odor, but a distinct raw fuel smell which was noticeable throughout the garage. I poked around a bit and noticed the smell was mostly coming from the left side air intake of my Boxster. There was no smell in the cabin - only from the outside, and no dripping was seen underneath the car. I drove it to work today so the car was fully warmed up. I have occasionally noticed a bit of a fuel smell in the garage at times, but it was never this strong and I always thought it was from my lawn mower. Of course, I am getting it checked out as soon the dealer can get me in, but would like to ask if others have noticed anything like this.

No never had that issue with any of my cars to include the Porsches. One thing, if I were you, I would insist that they take care of you immediately; this is not a routine oil change. Frankly, I would have made them send a flat bed truck and taken it to the dealership. There have been some discussions of a fuel tank issue though that may be true-true and unrelated. My friend, don't let Porsche put you off on this one it could be serious.

 

[autobahn]

never ever ever drive a car exhibiting a raw fuel smell. park the car until it can be seen. engine fires are no bueno.

 

[MikePhDPE]

I especially wouldn't park a car I suspect is leaking fuel inside my garage.

 

[GregW]

I've never had that smell from my Boxster, although it did happen once or twice in other cars with an over-filled tank and a few swift corners.

Raw fuel smells are a real no-no unless it's just a bit of overflow before the bowser auto-shut-off works.

 

[Veets]

My dealer checked the car out today and called me back this afternoon with the news; "we could not duplicate the concern". They had two techs look at it and drive it (twice). They found no visible evidence of a leak, and there were no stored codes that would indicate a loss of fuel pressure resulting from a leak. The Service Manager, who I think is tops, believes I am smelling cosmoline burn off from the engine. While there is no doubt that the smell is most noticeable when the car is warm, I know the smell of burning cosmoline because I had a Cayman that must have had a bath in the stuff. This smell is different. It has a distinct fuel odor. Maybe not quite like raw fuel, but to me it smells like fuel that has dripped on a hot surface and vaporized.

Tonight, after driving home for a half hour or so with the car good and warm, the smell was noticeable in my garage after it had been parked for 10 or 15 minutes. The hot air rising out of the air intake has a noticeable fuel odor. So it's back to square one. I need to find a way to duplicate this problem at the dealer.

 

[Veets]

Mods: I misposted this. Please move this thread to the 718 Boxster/Cayman Issues And Problems forum. Thank you.

 

[johan]

My dealer checked the car out today and called me back this afternoon with the news; "we could not duplicate the concern". They had two techs look at it and drive it (twice). They found no visible evidence of a leak, and there were no stored codes that would indicate a loss of fuel pressure resulting from a leak. The Service Manager, who I think is tops, believes I am smelling cosmoline burn off from the engine. While there is no doubt that the smell is most noticeable when the car is warm, I know the smell of burning cosmoline because I had a Cayman that must have had a bath in the stuff. This smell is different. It has a distinct fuel odor. Maybe not quite like raw fuel, but to me it smells like fuel that has dripped on a hot surface and vaporized.

Tonight, after driving home for a half hour or so with the car good and warm, the smell was noticeable in my garage after it had been parked for 10 or 15 minutes. The hot air rising out of the air intake has a noticeable fuel odor. So it's back to square one. I need to find a way to duplicate this problem at the dealer.

Invite det dealer home

 

[Porsche2018]

Invite det dealer home

Absolutely agree, something is still not right don't let them off the hook too easily.

 

[piran]

Veets

Hope that there's a punchline to this that isn't posthumous...

 

[Veets]

Hope that there's a punchline to this that isn't posthumous...

Haha. Nope. Still here. Turned out the smell was not fuel. I brought it back to the dealer the 2nd time and the service techs finally got a whiff of it while I was there (It was much more pungent in my garage). They didn't think it was fuel, but did admit that the smell was unusual. They used a hydrocarbon detector to sniff for any traces of fuel but found nothing. That put my mind at ease, but the source of the odor remains a mystery. I don't notice the smell now that the weather is warmer. We'll see what happens next winter.

 

[piran]

Veets

Relieved. In the UK some houses here have off-peak power storage heaters. The internal elements heat up red hot inside thermal storage bricks. Daytime they slowly release their energy. Simple and effective.

One downside is that if you polish shoes, for instance, nearby the next night's 'heat storage process' burns off the now embedded waxy residue on the red hot wire elements inside. Resulting pong is REALLY pervasive and not a little noxious. Hangs about a lot. To any who haven't lived with these things and correctly deduced the source it can appear quite mysterious and worrying.

Not limited to shoe polish, paints (particularly the oil-based ones), cleaners or perfumes and, of course, anything nominally hydrocarbon-based ...or even opioids. Not saying you're smoking something wacky down there in the garage but those storage heaters might reveal more than you'd expect : - ) YMMV