Hey all,

This was a question of PWRHungry on this board. I thought i would try to clarify the situation a little bit:

There has been much discussion about this "sulfur smell" on other boards. Basically, Toyota claims that this is from the quality of gas you put in your truck. In other words, try a different gas station/brand. Or move to California (stricter gas & emission controls), where very few owners (if any) have this problem. Toyota also advise to be more mellow in your driving habits (avoid hard acceleration).

The theory for this smell is that due to clean emission standards (ULEV) set by Toyota (and other car companies) and that many gas companies have not caught up with these standards, there are still large amount of sulfur in the gasoline. This smell is most noticeable when you accelerate hard. Also, if you leave your windows down, the smell will hit you hard.

Toyota currently has NO plans to make any changes nor has any fixes for this. In it's defense, OTHER car manufacturers also are getting this complaint.

Of note, the 3rd gen 4Runners usually do NOT have this rotten smell because our emission standards are lower (LEV instead of ULEV); apparently this smell is most noticeable in vehicles with ULEV rated-catalytic converters.

I have smelled this occasionally on my '02 4Runner (LEV-rated). It is normal to smell it once in a while; however, it looks like the '03 4Runner is more susceptible to it.

Hope this helps.