Over the last month I have noticed that my beloved car is emitting a rotten egg smell in the car. I thought it was just a freak occurrence but now is becoming an embarrassing problem, for obvious reasons. I have had the car for 3 years with no problems what so ever and would love to continue driving this beauty for a while

The bad smell occurs when the cabin Heater is on full max air flow and set at 32 degrees Celsius (89.6 F for our USA friends). And only starts after 8 to 10 minutes the car has been driving from start.

I have turned the temp to below 26 degrees and reduced the airflow and this seems to lessen the strength of the smell in the cabin however this is just a short term solution to tolerate the drive.

The smell does not enter the cabin if the A/C is on or the temp is below 22 degrees or if the HVAC is completely off.

I've been searching Google and it seems that the issue could be with the Catalytic Converter being clogged. However if the CC is clogged the performance would be degraded, however the car still performs quite well and accelerates quickly when I put the pedal to the metal.

Another issue could be with the O2 sensor being worn over time and is giving an incorrect fuel/oxygen mixture which would cause unburned fuel to produce the sulphide smell. But I have not got any check Engine lights so it seems that it is operating correctly.

The other issue could be that I have moved away from my home in Vancouver in the last month for a Northern setting in the city of Kitimat and possibly the fuel quality is different than where I used to live. 1400km North

All of the above suggestions are just educated guesses from Google searches and if anyone has more experience on this issue any suggestions will be greatly appreciated before I start buying parts and replacing the Catalytic Converter or O2 sensors.

 

its your catalytic converter. its clogged. replace it. problem solved.

 

It is the sulfur that you are smelling.