Smelly car!

I take it my car is meant to be fairly smelly when it starts from cold? With it not having a cat and having a choke and all that...its just when I first start Thor up to move it somewhere on the drive, I have to shut the back door 'cause it stinks like mad! Unfortunately I cant attach smells to photobucket.... Steve

What does it smell of? Petrol? If so, maybe theres more choke on than it actually needs. Usually I draw the choke out on mine while turning it over until it fires up, then gently push it back in until I get a reasonably steady tickover. This position is typically less than half way out, and within a few minutes it can go all the way back in, even in winter. In fact in summer it will start without choke, I will pull it out a little just a fraction to smooth the tickover for the first minute or two. Remember these cars are designed to start in -40c Swedish winters, so the cold start is largely redundant in mild UK weather conditions! On the subject of catalytic converters, have you ever smelt the exhaust of a car with a hot cat?! (rotten eggs) And don't forget they don't even start working until they are thoroughly hot, which means on most cars they don't actually do anything because they never get hot enough. Don't get me started on the lies of the new car industry! All the best Rich

hmmm, not sure what it smells of to be honest, just a sooty petrol smell i suppose.... When I start it I usually put my foot on the throttle slightly and get it to fire and immediately pull the choke on to keep it from stalling. I find that it doesnt like starting witht the choke on as much as it does with it turned off.

Probably overfuelling smells from the choke. You want to give thor a good run out, will do wonders for it

Yep, Thor will definitely get some good runs out when ive passed my test. I think blowing off that beemer M5 on Sunday helped it, err, officer! Steve

I know the smell - my Spitfire used to do it too when running on choke before I correctly adjusted it. It's just running a bit rich, that's all. How old is the fuel? I've heard that modern unleaded goes off very quickly as the combustible bits evaporate off, so more needs to be pumped through for the motor to run properly. This may also contribute to the smell, but I don't know. I couldn't agree more with Rich's assessment of cats and modern motor manufacturer's lies. Find one of the few forecourts that still stocks proper 4-star and put that in, then savour *that* smell... glorious indeed!