When i get in my polo (1997 1.4 CL) it stinks of petrol really bad. The smell goes away after I've been driving about

5 mins. It's also not that great on fuel either and it's driven very carefully (i cant really afford petrol thats why!)

What do i need to check or what can be the cause of this?

have you put a induction kit on by any chance?? if not try replacing filters, airfilter, fuel filter....

Check the fuel lines that are in your engine bay where they connect to the injector rail.

I have noticed the standard clips that hold these on can perish and cause a bad and dangerous fuel leak.

Check the fuel lines that are in your engine bay where they connect to the injector rail.

I have noticed the standard clips that hold these on can perish and cause a bad and dangerous fuel leak.

thats exactly what i was gonna say. had this problem on a few dubs

Great i'll check there, where is the injector rail?

Ontop of the inlet manifold, you will see a long silver strip with four injectors going to the inlet.

Run along that to the left hand side (facing towards the car) and you should see 2 hoses going into it, those are you fuel hoses.

I'm in the same boat, smells of petrol uses alot of petrol, i have a cone filter on it and no backbox which cant help, soon to put a ss 4 branch on too :(

i thought i was using too much fuel as i had a heavy right foot and was carrying passengers the day before... so i filled it up with a £5 of fuel and went for a spin, drove carefully in traffic, foot down on main open roads etc all sorts of different driving and i did 37 miles, could of done a couple more i reckon but the petrl station was near, thats with...

GT engine

full stainless system

golf gti AFM

K&n filter

poloace chip with raised 8k limiter

mine smells of petrol 2 lol

i might check my fuel rail

yeah defo check the hoses to the injoctor fuel rail and from the mannifold to cause it was happenin to my old polo and it took it to catch fire before i descoverd that the return pipe was sliping off because the clip wasnt griping or sealing properly luckly managed 2 put it out with no damage done

forgot 2 ask if it was only inside the car u can smell it our outside the car aswell???

The car isn't with me at the moment but i'll check as soon as i get it back.

I think its just inside the car, when i start her up ..but obviously I'm not outside the car when that happens so i dont know.

Expect another post when i've had a look.

If it's smelling only when the car is started from cold, it could be normal behaviour. The ECU will enrichen the mixture until the engine is warm in order to ensure the engine doesn't stall when idling due to higher friction of the engine at cold.

This is clear if you whip out a plug when the engine has only been running for ~1min from cold (ie. first thing in the morning) and compare it to when you whip it out when it's been idling when warm for 5mins or more.