I had the 75K service done at my Subie dealer on my 2001 Forester and when I picked it up it had this oil/gas smell inside it. This was last Thursday. Now I have indentified that the smell is there in the morning after the car has sat in the garage all night with the windows open an inch or two and if I drive the car with the air off or recirculating the smell is there but if I have the air vents bringing in air from the outside then it goes away. I took it back to the dealer and they told me that they can smell it but can't find anything wrong. The guy tried to make out that my husband possibly did something to make it smell but we haven't done anything to it and the smell gives me one hell of a headache. Any ideas?

My husband claims he knows stuff about cars ( well he put an up-pipe(?) in his MR2 and now is getting on for his WRX) and he said he will take a look tonight.

My Dad said something about the fuel injection something might leak something???. Well I have no clue as to what they are on about. It's not a cold weather thing as the weather here has been 40-65 F and the smell is still the same.

TIA

I am guessing that the fuel smell is probly in the seat or on the floor from whatever mechanic worked on your car.Doesn't take much stuff on their clothes to make to whole car smell for a while.Most likely they had spilled something on their boots or on their clothes and the smell got into the upolstry while they were driving it.I think it will go away after a while.

It is also not uncommon to have a mechanic spill oil or fluids on an engine during service. Do you know exactly what they did? In most cases it burns off in a day or two.