Petrol Smell

[Guest metalmickey]

Hi

 

I have a 98 Ford Galaxy 2.3 Petrol. The car has an intermittent fuel smell but there is definitely no fuel leak. I have never detected the smell outside of the car (which means I cannot follow my nose to the source), but I seem to get the smell after heavy braking or cornering if the air vents are blowing fresh air. On re-circulate the smell is not there.

 

Other owners have posted about this fault and it seems that the Galaxy suffers from faulty tank vent valves, however, none of the posts have identified which valves, they just say that they got it fixed at the Main Dealer.

 

As most will know, to meet emission standards most vehicles employ a sealed fuel system to stop evaporative loss (technically it is not sealed, but vented into the inlet manifold via a carbon canister and gulp valves). The Galaxy has such a system (there is a carbon canister under the car apparently). This sealed system normally results in the tank "whooshing" when filling up at the petrol station, mine has never made such a noise. The other posts where this has been fixed state that their cars did not whoosh before but do now they are fixed.

 

So to the question, does anyone know if there is a particular valve (and where it is on the vehicle) that fails leading to these symptoms?

 

Cheers

 

Chris

[Guest metalmickey]

Hi Fred

 

Your humour is not lost on me :D

 

I looked at the valve and all looked (and smelt) well. In desperation I then removed the osf wheel arch liner to look at the canister, and wheyhey, both pipes were disconnected and just flapping around in the wind. I refitted them and then went for a short drive......

 

Whoohoo :D smell free, the tank filler even whooshes now.

 

I have only had this car about 2 months (it is under warranty but who can spare their car while it is being repaired?) and I have looked through the old receipts that came with the car, the smell seems to be an ongoing fault with the first mention being when the car was only 8 months old!

 

Anyway, thanks for telling me where everything is, without that info I would not have gone to the trouble of removing the liner on the off-chance that there might be something behind it.

 

Cheers

 

Chris