The past couple days when leaving work in my 2007 Civic (5x,xxx miles) I've noticed a brief wave of gasoline smell after starting the car. At first I noted it happening when I was backing out of my parking spot (parking slightly uphill if it matters) and thought maybe the smell was coming out of the exhaust and then coming into the car as I backed through the vapors. This morning though I investigated a little and now I'm not sure - it may be coming from engine bay and in through the HVAC vents.
I'm talking a distinct smell that lasts for maybe 5 seconds. I think it only happens on cold starts after the car sits for several hours (8+ hrs when I've noticed it so far).
The car's taken a few more cranks to start occasionally lately too, although that might be the battery getting weak. It doesn't even nearly correlate with the gas smell at any rate. I scanned for codes and nothing came up (and the CEL is not lit).
There is absolutely no gas smell other than the brief wave at startup. Time will tell if this is an intermittent problem or something that just started and will happen every time.
One final wrinkle is I happened to notice this the day after I transported some gas for some lawn equipment -- just 1 gallon sealed up nice and tight in a gas can. I don't see how and gas from that would cause smells only on cold start though...
At any rate I realize there's some random stuff up there but I'm not sure what could be related. Is it possible this is related to some normal/occasional function of the emissions system? What could cause this kind of thing only on cold startup?
I'm talking a distinct smell that lasts for maybe 5 seconds. I think it only happens on cold starts after the car sits for several hours (8+ hrs when I've noticed it so far).
The car's taken a few more cranks to start occasionally lately too, although that might be the battery getting weak. It doesn't even nearly correlate with the gas smell at any rate. I scanned for codes and nothing came up (and the CEL is not lit).
There is absolutely no gas smell other than the brief wave at startup. Time will tell if this is an intermittent problem or something that just started and will happen every time.
One final wrinkle is I happened to notice this the day after I transported some gas for some lawn equipment -- just 1 gallon sealed up nice and tight in a gas can. I don't see how and gas from that would cause smells only on cold start though...
At any rate I realize there's some random stuff up there but I'm not sure what could be related. Is it possible this is related to some normal/occasional function of the emissions system? What could cause this kind of thing only on cold startup?