The handful of cab companies near me are all crappy little operations and populate their fleets with what I’m guessing are uniformly used cars (I’d guess beat up Crown Vic cop cars, as many seem to have cutouts on the B pillar where a plexiglass shield may have been mounted). And just about every time I get in one, I get the heavy odor of gasoline fumes. (I’m never able to tell whether the drivers were brain damaged before or as a consequence of inhaling that stuff all day).
What, specifically, can break/wear out in a car to lead to gas odor inside, and why do so many of these cabs seem to have this particular problem?
Could be that since they have to fill up so often they are just more likely to drip gas on their shoes or step in gas puddles at the station. Or maybe they tend to top off their tank, making it even more likely that they’ll get gas on their shoes.
The gas on driver’s clothes thing is my first guess. The second is a leaky gas tank or fuel line. The third is it’s not gas, but some cleaning solvent they use on the interior
Sometimes they do something stupid like put the meter attachment or radio wiring through the firewall by knocking out a plug and squeezing two things into one hole. Then the old rubber seal won’t fit so they leave a gap.