GTI- Sulphur smell from exhaust

[Dzl_Dubba]

Hey guys

My Bro's GTI has sulphur smell (rotten eggs) coming from the exhaust when he goes to park the car after work. Is this normal? I know that the sulphur will oxidise when going through the cat but never smelt it from any other cars. Could the cat be the problem, or maybe even O2 sensor? He uses BP Ultimate btw.

Thanks

[Gazzaco]

Noticed my GTI the other day really stank when i left it idling after a 10 miute run . The thing reeked, and the smell was inside the car for a while cos i left the door open while it idled!

[craig_the_german]

Hi, you will find every car produced since the introduction of unleaded petrol...back in the 80's has had that rotten egg smell to some degree. Some cars just seem stronger than others.

[JohnA]

comes and goes.
my wifes mazda 3 sp23 does it every now and again, and only just a couple of days ago did i notice it on the gti

[clubbie]

BP Ultimate 98 should have very little rotten egg gas smell as it has less sulphur than other fuels.

Change fuel or service stations at the next fill and see if it makes a difference.

[Idle]

My sister's new Yaris has had the same smell since new — dealer's advice was that switching to BP would fix it.

It didn't.

From what I can recall of previous instances of this problem, it's due to overfuelling resulting in unburned fuel reaching the cat converter and burning there.

Probably not really noticeable in terms of overall fuel consumption as it takes but little to produce an obvious odour.

It doesn't date from the introduction of unleaded fuel so much as from the mandating of catalytic converters coupled with the adoption of fuel injection.

I go back to well before the introduction of leaded fuel and don't recall any such smell from Tin Lizzies and Baby Austins — which of course had carburetters and (perforce — petrol was petrol in those days, the only choice you had was the brand on the pump) ran on unleaded.

They produced lots of other smells, but rotten eggs wasn't on the list.

I suggested all this to the Toyota service bloke, who sort of damned the theory with faint praise and said that in any case the factory setting was always correct "some cars just do that and we can't do anything about it" — which is BS, of course.

Incidentally, I'm familiar with 3 Yaris (Yarii?) — the two auto's with 1.5 litre motors do it, the 1.3 (also auto and therefore somewhat sluggish) doesn't.

[Cossor]

My sister's new Yaris has had the same smell since new — dealer's advice was that switching to BP would fix it.

It didn't.

From what I can recall of previous instances of this problem, it's due to overfuelling resulting in unburned fuel reaching the cat converter and burning there.

Probably not really noticeable in terms of overall fuel consumption as it takes but little to produce an obvious odour.

It doesn't date from the introduction of unleaded fuel so much as from the mandating of catalytic converters coupled with the adoption of fuel injection.

[I]I go back to well before the introduction of leaded fuel and don't recall any such smell from Tin Lizzies and Baby Austins — which of course had carburetters and (perforce — petrol was petrol in those days, the only choice you had was the brand on the pump) ran on unleaded.[/I]

They produced lots of other smells, but rotten eggs wasn't on the list.

I suggested all this to the Toyota service bloke, who sort of damned the theory with faint praise and said that in any case the factory setting was always correct "some cars just do that and we can't do anything about it" — which is BS, of course.

Incidentally, I'm familiar with 3 Yaris (Yarii?) — the two auto's with 1.5 litre motors do it, the 1.3 (also auto and therefore somewhat sluggish) doesn't.

Yeh, in the beginning of cat converters, some exhausts at traffic lights really foul.
By the way, as a kid growing up in war years, can still remember smell of Kerosene. Start car with a small amount of petrol, but have mixture of petrol and kero in tank. Illegal of course, but petrol rationed.

[wanga1983]

Hi guys, I took my car in for repairs (broken door handle cover) today and was told that VWA put a recall on it due to an issue with the engine's NOX sensor. Although my vehicle is a 118TSI it is possible that above GTI owners are experiencing similar issue.

Apparently the NOX sensor is not correctly calibrated on my vehicle so the ECU has trouble supplying the correct amount of fuel (either too lean / rich). I recently noticed the engine would misfire under acceleration and sometimes belch out a puff of black smoke. The dealer flashed the ECU and it seems to be running just fine again.

I recommend that you check your vehicle with your dealer for similar recall. The Recall Code Label (per my dealer's invoice) is VW000010006 (campaign 24s4).

[Corey_R]

We've been aware of that "24S4 dealer service campaign" for quite some time. It's specific to the 1.4 Twincharge motor however.

[prise]

Also its the 'knock' sensor that was recalibrated