smell of the exhaust gas inside the car

Hello,
i have this problem with my car:

when the car is not moving, when i turn on the heating fan, i feel a little smell of exhaust gas.

Opening the bonnet, i feel some smell of exhaust gas, but i think this is normal.
My problem is that i feel this smell also in the cabin, when i turn on the heating fan.

I see under the bonnet that there is a partition between the motor and where should come the air from outside (the grid under the wipers): the two partitions seems well separated , when the bonnet is closed

I tried to find where comes the exhaust gas, searching a lot for some 'hole' between these two partitions, but i did not find any hole.

So i cannot understand from where comes this smell.
Now i have a doubt:

The air that comes into the cockpit, (drawn by the heating fan) does pass all through the cabin air filter?
Or there is some other way?

Any suggestion?

Thank you!

vicolodo wrote:when the car is not moving, when i turn on the heating fan, i feel a little smell of exhaust gas.

vicolodo wrote:Opening the bonnet, i feel some smell of exhaust gas, but i think this is normal.

Neither of these are normal. You should not smell exhaust fumes in the engine bay or the cabin.

You probably have an exhaust leak in the engine bay and this is where your smell is coming from with the bonnet open and its getting into the cabin too.

vicolodo wrote:So i cannot understand from where comes this smell.

Find a leak in the exhaust system, manifold, downpipe, you mentioned EGR in another post, so maybe your EGR system is leaking as that carries exhaust gasses.

If you fix the exhaust problem, you will most probably fix the smell in the cabin too.

vicolodo wrote:The air that comes into the cockpit, (drawn by the heating fan) does pass all through the cabin air filter?

Yes, its all filtered, but it can't filter all the exhaust gasses that shouldn't be there.

Thank you very much.
The problem is that the engine is old and perhaps some leak can happen.
You are right, it should not happen, and i will search for it,
but i thought that the engine bay air should be separated and sealed from the cabin air.
In the picture below you can see that there is a wall that separates the engine bay (see the red arrows), and there is a long black gasket on it.
this gasket when the bonnet is closed should seal the engine bay separating it from the grid under the wipers, where should come the air that go to the cabin, passing through the cabin air filter (on the left).

I think that this should happen also for safety and health reasons:
exhaust gas are easily detected by our smell, but perhaps some kind of gas dangerous to out health, could be odorless.
Is is not safe to have this gas into the cabin, if something is not working well in the motor.
Do you agree?

Thanks

vicolodo wrote:The problem is that the engine is old and perhaps some leak can happen.
You are right, it should not happen, and i will search for it,

Yes, you need to be safe. A leak should not be in the engine bay, new or old.

vicolodo wrote:but i thought that the engine bay air should be separated and sealed from the cabin air.

Its all open to the outside air, its the leak that is your problem and not the seal. Other C3s don't smell with the bonnet open or closed, so the problem is not with the seal.

vicolodo wrote:I think that this should happen also for safety and health reasons:
exhaust gas are easily detected by our smell, but perhaps some kind of gas dangerous to out health, could be odorless.
Is is not safe to have this gas into the cabin, if something is not working well in the motor.
Do you agree?

The exhaust system must be sealed in the engine bay and only open at the rear of the car. If you have a fault in the exhaust system, it may not be safe to drive, particularly the petrol engines that give plenty of carbon monoxide. The fault is with the exhaust system, its got a leak and needs fixing. Unsafe to drive? It could well be, best get it fixed