GenVibe - Community for Pontiac Vibe Enthusiasts

This is so embarassing! My Vibe's exhaust smells like rotten eggs. Only in the morning when I drive a few blocks to my son's school. When we get out of the car, there is this incredible heavy duty rotten egg smell. When I drive home and get out of the car, it's gone. But it happened tonight and it was nasty. It's never happened several times in a row, just once every morning. Could it be the gas I use? Sunoco 87 octaine? And no, I'm not farting in the car!

I read the title of this and it immediately reminded me of that Seinfeld episode where his car had B.O.!

Rotten eggs or a continuous burning-sulfur smell usually indicates a problem in the catalytic converter or other emission control devices.

LOL. That would be the emission controls at work. Mine is especially noticable in the morning, or when the vehicle is sitting in the driveway when it was started cold. I believe the Catalytic Converter is the culprit of the smell.The smell goes away rather quickly though, which would be normal. Once things get running optimally, the smell will go away, as in your case.

You might try switching gas stations. I use nothing but Cheveron in my vehicle. I have done gas mileage tests on my own with different gas stations and Cheveron beat all of them with a mile or 2 more per gallon. They also add cleaning additives to the fuel to keep your engine clean. I would also use 89 octane in the base Vibe because of it's compression ratio of 10.0:1.

well, at least I'm not alone! when can I expect this to go away permanently? there's 1800 miles on the car. is this somethingI should have checked? it's really gross!

quote:well, at least I'm not alone! when can I expect this to go away permanently? there's 1800 miles on the car. is this somethingI should have checked? it's really gross! I don't believe it will go away, or it might just become less noticable. I have 3600 miles on my Vibe and still have the smell.

I started having this same problem with my Vibe a couple of days ago. I've had it for 4 months and it currently has about 12,000km on it. It's likely due to the cold weather I think, the first time I noticed the problem was when the temp dropped to about -15c. It does only happen when the engine is cold and it goes away fairly quickly. Has anyone had a response from GM on this issue?

dont use sunnoco gas, it contains methonal. your owners manual striclty says that this will destroy emissions componets

quote:dont use sunnoco gas, it contains methonalVery true...Dont use Sunoco, Clark, Speedway, or any cheap gas. Its watered down with alcohol. In Michigan...by law they are required to state this at the pumps, but not in every state.Gas with methanol produces excess water that sits in your exhaust system and can destroy it... OR make it smell funky due to sulphur deposits. Oh yeah, sulphur smells like rotten eggs when it burns.

Yup, a stinky ehaust will always be around, onless you covert it to battery power...I'm not sure how many "AA" batteries you will needfor that...anybody know?

We have experienced the same problem here in Albuquerque. On 11/11/02 we will visit the dealer to see what is the problem. The service manager did not seem too surprised by our complaint of rotten eggs. Another lady in our city told us of the same thing. Has GM Done anything to address this problem???????

how many miles do you have on your car now...??I have the same problem but it has "died down" lately, now that I have put more miles on the car (now 6,800)Here is some feedback from my forum:http://forums.genvibe.com/zerothread?id=1026

Apologies for resurrecting an old thread...but I was interested in the update.8000 miles for me...and it STILL makes that smell. And in the same place. There's this particular red light that I hit when I'm leaving campus where I always have to stop because of the timing...I get the left turn signal at the light to leave campus, and the light timing makes me stop at the hospital. Without fail, it always makes that smell at that hospital red light. comes right through the air vents, whether you have it on internal recycle or not. That's how the dealer told me to 'fix' it...put it on recycle. Blah.

i gave you a toyota tsb about this, its the fuel, in CA its regulated for the sulfur. others states may or are not regulated.

Champ is correct. The basic cause is high sulfur content in the fuel, although some catalyst precious metal formulations are "better" than others at creating the rotten egg smell from the sulfur. Using high fan speed settings may help keep the smell outside, but you should try different brands of gasoline.

quote:dont use sunnoco gas, it contains methonal. your owners manual striclty says that this will destroy emissions componetsThat's ethanol they mix with gas not methanol. Ethanol is supposed to be safe for your engine; some GM vehicles can even run on an 85% ethanol mixture.

Methanol and Ethanol are quite different...but I could see where some idiot who decides he wants to drag race his Vibe might put Methanol in it.