BMW E36 fuel smell

[Wan60]

The car in question is a BMW E36 328i, which is my dad's but I often borrow his car for my personal ferrying not more than 30kms per trip.

The problem is sometimes when I start the engine, there's this whiff of petrol in the air(as if there was a broken fuel line?). The pungent smell is strong if you duck and take a whiff besides the driver seat on the right side of the car.

I'm not a expert with the internals of a car, so I might not know anything in repairing though I can relay your opinions and info to my dad.

 

[Hatmouse]

If it goes away after the engine is warm, maybe that means it's just running rich until the ECU works its emissions magic?

 

[Spectre]

More likely is old shrunken fuel injector hoses that need to be replaced - they can leak a little at startup then as they expand due to heating seal right back up.

 

[Brabham]

When I had the 328 it had the same thing, because on the cold mornings the engine was running a bit rich, but in yours case it could be a old hose problem as said above. One place to check as well is the fuel filter hoses, which are located under the drivers seat(lhd) at the bottom of the car. One of those hoses broke on my car and I was lucky that it didnt went up on flames.