Is it me or has gas gotten to the point it smells bad

old · May 3, 2010

Any more the smell of gas almost makes me sick. Years ago I loved the smell of gas but seems now days it smells bad. I did stop smoking about 9 months ago so maybe that is it or is it the way they do the gas now days and the alcohol in it

ILLEFTY · May 3, 2010

It smells different at each gas station and the color's different at each one

Jeff B. · May 4, 2010

All smells are intensified after you quit smoking. After I quit I started smelling stuff that I didn"t know had odors associated with it. One of the reasons you put on pounds after quitting is that everything smells and tastes better than it did before. Nothing wrong with that, though. Better to weigh a little more and not smoke than keep on polluting your lungs. I smoked for 27 years. Finally quit after my lung collapsed. That was just 11 years ago. In an ironic twist, you will find out that that the smoking habit itself is quite nasty smelling. Peoples breath, clothes, cars, and houses reek with the odor that you can detect from a long ways away. Now, when I visit my friends that smoke, as I drive away my own clothes reek with the scent they picked up just sitting in their home visiting. Quitting is hard, but not impossible. Just keep on quitting for the rest of your (extended) life, lol.
My 2 cents worth.

Anonymous-0 · May 4, 2010

You're getting the senses back so now you can smell the roses and appreciate the perfume.Congratulations on the break, marvellous how all those little aches and pains also disappear.Give it time and the smell of cigarette smoke will be obnoxious.

Mark - IN. · May 4, 2010

Hard to say there old. As a kid growing up I worked part time at a gas station after school and in the summer. To be honest with you, I loved the smell of gasoline and never thought about it since, except that I don't go out of my way to smell gasoline. About a week ago I'm getting passed by an '80's Chevy Suburban that clearly needed a tuneup because out its tail pipe at me was the smell of unburnt gasoline, and plenty of it. It didn't bother me at first, but it was just ahead and to the left of me just hanging there and the more it did, the more that smell got to be annoying until I just gassed it, and left that thing behind me, rolled my window down to air things out, until that thing caught up with me down the road a piece and did it all over again. That's when I noticed that the smell of gasoline isn't one of my favorite smells anymore.

I guess...to each, his or her own.

Mark

Anonymous-0 · May 4, 2010

(quoted from post at 19:49:00 05/03/10) Any more the smell of gas almost makes me sick. Years ago I loved the smell of gas but seems now days it smells bad. I did stop smoking about 9 months ago so maybe that is it or is it the way they do the gas now days and the alcohol in it

Just got a bunch on my hands this morning. It does have a different smell than just a few years ago for some reason.

If you quit smoking, especially if noone else around you constantly smokes, you'll notice things. I can set at the dining room table and tell when the neighbor kid is smoking dope in the barn.

Started taking more showers after quitting too :shock:

Dave

1936 · May 4, 2010

Huffers love smelling gas and any house hold cleaning agents. See the latest National Geographic magazine with kids in Mexico.

wally_mi · May 4, 2010

the smell of gas does not bother me, its the cost of it. gas just jumped 22 cents here this am. wally

olgentdc · May 4, 2010

reminds me of a kid song ...stinky chevrolet

rrlund · May 4, 2010

Been filling up at the Shell station?

TomR Ont · May 4, 2010

old,
Congrats on quiting, I did almost two years ago.
What I'm finding is most of this boxed food tasts like chemical food to me.
I also notice, as Jef B said the old smoke gets on your clothes.
I still have the cravings, it's the same craving as with food, cigarette or coffee. After the food or coffee I still have a craving. So don't eat to stop the cravings it dosn't work, just adds weight. Keep up the good fight, half a day at a time.

As for the gas smelling bad I haven't noticed it, I have noticed other stuff now dosen't smell too good.

P.S. Please don't forget to post your auction adventures and found treasures, I like reading them.

Paul in MN · May 4, 2010

I am convinced that the chemistry of gasoline has changed quite a bit. My nose suggests there is much more toluene (and of course ethanol) in it than ever before. As it gets old (a few months, not years) it gets sticky, fouling a lot of fuel filters and carbs. I think old gas is responsible for some of the sticky valve problems we are seeing. And then it is much more destructive to rubber gas lines, fuel pump diaphrams and all small engine fuel systems.

Old, I think you are correct...this isn't the gasoline we used quite reliably for decades. If you look up the chemistry of gasoline, there is no chemical definition or formula. The refinerys can mix a bunch of volatile waste products together and sell it for high prices. So their profits are at record highs, and their competition from smaller refineries is gone. They own the market, and we get toxic crap.

Rant temporarily over...until I have to fix another engine having bad gas problems.

Paul in MN

old · May 4, 2010

On Sunday I picked up of all things an O2 tank I do not smoke any more so I figure I'll never need it but it came with a bunch of junk and I payed all of $1 for the stuff. Tank has 1000psi of O2 in it to boot.

old · May 4, 2010

Ya have to agree with gas and carb problems. Just fixed 2 B/S engines one 5hp and the other 6 that had problems with the carbs and parts sticking in them both. Told the woman who owns the stuff to make sure she ran them out of gas if they where not going to be run for a couple weeks or more. Doing that seems to help most of the time at least it has for me

Inno · May 4, 2010

(quoted from post at 10:56:46 05/04/10) On Sunday I picked up of all things an O2 tank I do not smoke any more so I figure I'll never need it but it came with a bunch of junk and I payed all of $1 for the stuff. Tank has 1000psi of O2 in it to boot.

If it's for breathing air the level of 02 will drop off over time. I'm a member of the fire dept. in my area and I believe it's every 4 months the tanks for our breathing apparatus need to be purged and refilled.
Was talking to a full time firefighter last week and he went to assist with a call to a garage fire to a neighboring dept. and about 10 steps after he went on air he started to get extremely weak and tired.......turned out the air was over 4 years old in those bottles and as such the oxygen content was significantly lower than it should have been.........seemed strange to me but apparently it can happen.

Back to the OT, I notice a big difference in the smell of gas depending on which station I get it from. I think it has to do with the amount of alcohol in a lot of gasoline nowadays.

old · May 4, 2010

This O2 tank I got is for med type help for breathing. Stands about 30 inches tall and 4 in diameter and has a plastic tube and the nose piece with it. Would like to find some one who needs it but so far no luck but who knows

TomR Ont · May 4, 2010

old, "picked up of all things an O2 tank"
I don't know about you - but I smoked 53 years. I'm sure I'll need one of those tanks one day if I live long enough. I hope your cigs didn't have all the extra chemicals added like ours.
On three puffers now and sometimes just going up the stairs is "huffing & puffing" for a while after.

WA-Hal · May 4, 2010

I thought gas smelled good when I was growing up, and I now think it smells pretty bad. I was never a smoker, so I never had my sense of smell blunted that way. I think that the gas of our youth was at least somewhat different than what it is now.

My best friend smoked for about 20 years and then quit. He said he was amazed at how much his sense of smell improved a couple of months after he quit smoking, and how much better food smelled. He had forgotten how good things can smell, since everything smelled like smoke. Unfortunately one of the side effects of everything tasting and smelling better was that he ate more and gained a bunch of weight after quitting smoking. Something to consider...

I love the smell of new tires, which doesn't smell good at all to my wife. But most cheese smells to me like vomit, and lots of people think cheese smells good. Maybe it is differences of perception, maybe even how we are hard wired.

But yes, I think gas smells a whole lot different than it did 40 or 50 years ago. Maybe the pleasing odor had to do with the tetraethyl lead that most gas used to include. Interesting topic!

bc · May 4, 2010

Hello old. And if you quit drinking alcohol then the taste of gas will make you sick too.

Is it me or has gas gotten to the point it smells bad

old

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