Greetings -
just making a post to help others that might one day search out the source of a strange gas smell outside the 2001 4 Runner. I found a lot of suggestions online that didn't help me at first.
4 Runner started having an occasional gas smell outside the car after it was parked. Never smelled gas inside the car. Changed gas cap and no luck. Assumed it was a fuel fitting leak somewhere in back on tank or fuel line - nothing found. As a side note you should be able to hear a pressure release sound when you take off gas cap (after driving it around for awhile).
Finally got an EGR related CEL which kicks off the VSC / TRAC traction control as indicated on dashboard. I reset these successfully with an OBD datalogger from the ///M. A month later the car started sputtering when taking off from a stop and eventually threw a CEL and error code which was cylinder 1 misfire. Look under hood and I say wow, Toyota doubles up the function of the coil packs in the 4 Runners. Found out nobody has changed the plugs in the 4 Runner since we bought it (now 130K mile :wow
. I go hunt the wife down :redbrick: and asked for her maintenance records... nope never changed out. Remove plugs and they are destroyed, gaps bigger than the Grand Canyon across the tips. Change plugs, no more gas smell for 10 days. Finally a cylinder 1 misfire CEL again and the gas smell is back but just not as strong plus it starts sputtering when taking off under heavy load. Changed the damn coil pack and all 3 spark plug wires since I'm in there and vois la - no gas smell, no misfires, no sputtering. Also cleaned MAF and datalogged the engine parameters before and after maintenance. I'll try to post them here eventually. The ECU has finally readapted to the clean MAF and spark plugs that can actually make a spark so our gas mileage has improved almost 2mpg on average - sweet.
Hope this helps somebody some day.
just making a post to help others that might one day search out the source of a strange gas smell outside the 2001 4 Runner. I found a lot of suggestions online that didn't help me at first.
4 Runner started having an occasional gas smell outside the car after it was parked. Never smelled gas inside the car. Changed gas cap and no luck. Assumed it was a fuel fitting leak somewhere in back on tank or fuel line - nothing found. As a side note you should be able to hear a pressure release sound when you take off gas cap (after driving it around for awhile).
Finally got an EGR related CEL which kicks off the VSC / TRAC traction control as indicated on dashboard. I reset these successfully with an OBD datalogger from the ///M. A month later the car started sputtering when taking off from a stop and eventually threw a CEL and error code which was cylinder 1 misfire. Look under hood and I say wow, Toyota doubles up the function of the coil packs in the 4 Runners. Found out nobody has changed the plugs in the 4 Runner since we bought it (now 130K mile :wow
. I go hunt the wife down :redbrick: and asked for her maintenance records... nope never changed out. Remove plugs and they are destroyed, gaps bigger than the Grand Canyon across the tips. Change plugs, no more gas smell for 10 days. Finally a cylinder 1 misfire CEL again and the gas smell is back but just not as strong plus it starts sputtering when taking off under heavy load. Changed the damn coil pack and all 3 spark plug wires since I'm in there and vois la - no gas smell, no misfires, no sputtering. Also cleaned MAF and datalogged the engine parameters before and after maintenance. I'll try to post them here eventually. The ECU has finally readapted to the clean MAF and spark plugs that can actually make a spark so our gas mileage has improved almost 2mpg on average - sweet. Hope this helps somebody some day.
