Moisture

The main reason you would be smelling sulfur, is because Refineries in North America do not remove sulfur from gasoline like they do over in Europe (poor quality gasoline)

Other reasons would include carbon buildup on your intake ports, inside your injectors, other parts of the engine which are getting burnt off once the engine is hot enough.

If the smell is bad, it could also indicate a rich air/fuel mixture or dirty cats.

arentz07

Yeah I only experienced the smell a couple of times, back when the car was brand-new, and the first time was basically right after break-in. Since then I've not experienced it. I drive it like I stole it often enough, I guess.

Moisture

That's probably the smell of you destroying a new engine.

What would you consider *right after break-in?*

arentz07

Look up break-in period, it's in the manual.

Moisture

In my opinion 1000 mile or whatever the manual specifies is nowhere near enough for the drivetrain maybe just brakes and suspension at the very most.

If you did a pull to redline once here and there, shouldn't hurt anything but lots of hard driving before roughly 3000 miles is up, especially repeated high rpm acceleration within a short time frame will impact engine/transmission longevity. Whatever you were smelling would be an indication of that.

arentz07

Yeah I'm talking about a one-time occurrence of this smell. I've done tons of things with my car across 37,000 miles since then - commute to work, drive twisty roads, and even go on a 1600 mile trip - and have had a flawless experience. The car drives the same now as it has. I've always waited until the car has had time to warm up - my rule of thumb is 15 minutes or more of average driving depending on outside temps - before getting it over 4000 RPM.

When I took delivery of the car, had 28 miles on it. During the 500-mile break-in period, I only exceeded 4k RPM once.

Not sure why the car would be broken.

edit: I'm now realizing that you got alarmed by my wording of "drive like I stole it", which of course, is hyperbole. I don't actually drive it like I stole it.

Moisture

Yep, well, even if you did redline the **** out of it several times before the 3000 mile mark, all you would really notice is slightly decreased performance/efficiency and some oil consumption.

arentz07

I wonder if that would manifest at low mileage. So far, obviously I haven't noticed any of that - I check my oil on my own every other month or so, and it's always been right around the same level.

... I am pretty sure the engine is fine. I've heard the horror stories - there was an RC F owner on these forums who drove his car aggressively without letting it warm up first, and then waiting until 17,000 miles to do his first oil change - which is really bad on the F with its 5,000-mile interval. He ended up getting a CEL, which is why he went in. In his case, "drive like he stole it" is actually accurate. I've been doing oil changes every 5,000 in my car even though the interval is 10,000, and treating it well in general. If there are any consequences of me being somewhat liberal during break-in, I'm sure they will not show up until way down the road. Even then - I wouldn't say redlining the **** out of it was what I did... I was pretty shy about really beating on the car for the first several thousand miles - maybe a WOT here or there but no extended back-road driving until many months into ownership.

If nothing else, it's important to remember the very early part of the car's life is out of our hands anyway. Other drivers probably test-drove the car before I got to it, and might have floored it. The car probably spent a lot of time idling at the dealership, too. "Oh, let me go and warm the car up for you", the sales person says. So I find being **** about break-in to be an exercise in futility. The 2GR is a reliable engine, so we might as well enjoy it (responsibly).

Anyway... this was massively off-topic lol.

Moisture

If the driving was aggressive enough, absolutely. The most obvious indication will be some sort of noticeable oil consumption. If you notice your car randomly starts to consume oil, out of nowhere with like 100k+ miles on it that is most likely a bad PCV valve or something like that.

My definition of "aggressive driving" would be bringing the engine up to redline multiple times within a very short period of time, like all in one fairly short drive. one full throttle pull here and there isn't going to hurt anything at all.

An engine needs 3000 miles of driving to fully wear in. The earlier you choose to drive it hard (and I mean repeatedly hard), the more likely you are going to wear in your engine "the fast way"

Now this is starting to get a little off-topic, but the optimal break in procedure would be, avoid highway driving as much as you can during the 3000 mile period. Varying your RPM's while keeping things under 3000 RPM driving about in the city is a perfect scenario for engine break in. You can gradually bump up the RPM's a little bit as you get close to the 3k mile mark. Once you're past that point, the engine will be perfectly sealed and therefore should have no issues achieving very high mileage while still consuming zero oil and providing optimal performance so long as you maintain it correctly.

I've heard that a transmission actually takes much longer than 3000 miles.

NickCaesar

My 2015 350 AWD has a noticeable smell after mashing it. I don’t know what sulfer is, and I don’t know if I’d describe it as egg smelling...
more of a hot/burning smell, either way definitely an odour after mashing it.

sunamer

I take it you rarely drive your IS hard?
when you drive it smoother and slower, the cats might not get to the temperature needed to burn off certain compounds, especially the ones with sulfur, so it only happens when you give it the beans.
I got my car used with 15k miles after 1 owner. When I started driving it hard, it smelled like it was a huge stinky egg. The smell went away after several days of me enjoying my “new” car... and rarely returns now.
Last time it was about a month ago. I managed to get 21.5mpg during a week of driving (“normal” mpg is around 18-19:. Next day after that, I drove it in a spirited fashion and the smell reappeared but it was very faint.
My guess is, it might be caused by a combination of certain fuel with a cycle of “eco” driving, followed by subsequent spirited driving.
The more you drive “slow” the more it will stink after it is driven hard. I follow that rule and the stink does not bother me anymore.

Moisture

Keep in mind that practically any car will be running quite rich during spirited acceleration so you're basically shoving extra gas through the engine and exhaust system.... during your "spirited" acceleration I'd use manual mode so you can gently tip into the throttle as the rpm increase and dont bring it all the way up to redline often if at all.

When the smell is very strong that means you're clearing out carbon deposits but as soon as it doesnt smell that strong anymore you're just unnecessarily wasting fuel and accelerating drivetrain wear.

sunamer

no, I am primarily creating fun, at the expense of my car drivetrain wearing out a bit faster.
Such is life - almost all enjoyable things in life are dangerous, unhealthy or lead to expenses...

Moisture

You can convince yourself using any sort of excuses you want. My take is that some people just take longer to grow up than others.

arentz07

As long as drivers are not revving the car up high when it's cold and changing the oil in accordance with their use of the car, there's no need for judgment.