Noob in Victoria, BC

[ACG]

Hi folks. Thanks for adding me. I just picked up a 2008 manual with 51,000 km (30,000 miles) from the original owner, window sticker and all... There's a bit of rust/corrosion on a few items under the hood from standing outside by the ocean, but otherwise it looks fine. There is a stong rotten egg smell from the exhaust, so I am going to have to track that down. I searched and read the relevant posts here, but they focus on the '03-'04 model year...

The original owner said he used only Premium gas.
Any ideas where to start looking on such a low-mileage 2008 car?

[joatmon]

Welcome to genvibe!

Since they didn't make a 2008 Vibe GT, yours has the base engine (1ZZ) and using premium fuel pretty much only increases your $/km (its a waste of money for no benefit)

A common cause for a rotten egg smell in cars in general is a failing catalytic converter. Do they have required emissions testing where you are and if so did the car pass? Some places just check for check engine lights/codes., others hook up a machine to the tail pipe.

[jolt]

The sulfur smell of rotten eggs is a failed or failing catalytic convertor, as joatmon has said. The question now is what made the convertor fail with only 30.000 miles on it? A convertor should last over 100,000 miles. Rich fuel mixtures will kill a convertor but there are many other things that can do a convertor in also. Have your fuel trim levels checked before replacing the convertor. Does the "Check Engine" light work? Any stored codes in ECM?

[ACG]

Thanks, jolt and joatmon! I do plan to look into fuel trim levels and stored codes. CEL is not on, and we no longer have emissions testing here.

[zbyers]

Perhaps the smell is simply from an exhaust gasket going bad.

Otherwise, i'd start with allllllll new fluids. Check the tires, make sure they're not ancient. Address what little corrosion it has. Overall, take care of it, and it'll take care of you.

[ACG]

Thanks, zbyers! The fluids are certainly due. Last oil change was 2018 and car has been driven only 2000 km since then. Tires are original, of course -- they don't get hot here and the car seems to have been parked out of the sun. A leaking exhaust gasket would sure be a lot cheaper than a new cat! Glad to have that suggestion to pursue as well.

[ACG]

Fluids all changed. The rotten egg smell disappeared before I took it to my mechanic. He said it was probably just the result of sitting and stale gas. Mechanic said it was like a new car (it should be, at 51,850 km or 31,000 miles)! I paid CDN$3100, which is way below value, but it took a month to close the sale as a result of COVID-19 (his wife, a nurse, got it and was hospitalized, and she needed to sign the documents, etc., etc.). I am really happy to have lucked into a very good Vibe!

[tpollauf]

Welcome to GenVibe. Why did this Vibe become available? Too many cars? Not healthy enough to drive anymore? And to think it's a "manual" to boot ... NICE Either way you got a steal of a deal. Enjoy it for many years to come. Also some useless trivia ... Other than the 2010 model year (which only lasted a few months), your 2008 model year was also a short production run. They introduced the 2009 redesigned model in April 2008 so there were not many 2008 Vibes produced. Another bonus, depending on how you look at it, is that almost ALL of the bugs were worked out of the 1st gen Vibe to where it is probably the most dependable year out there! Enjoy

[ACG]

Thanks, tpollauf. The car was bought new by the seller (he gave me the window sticker) here on Vancouver Island. He had suffered some dreadful musculoskeletal disorder and was all bent over, and had lost his licence, for reasons he did not specify. His wife had her own car (though this one was in her name too) so this one was just sitting. Thanks for the extra bits of info about the 2008 Vibe. My son bought a manual 2013 Matrix recently and it persuaded me over my hitherto insurmountable "Corolla hump" (as in, having driven two different automatic Corollas, I was never going to own a Corolla). Manual shift, 17" alloys, etc. made all the difference somehow...