2002 Acura RSX Premium from North America - Comments

Drivers side leather seats started to crack on the side just after a year of ownership. The dealer replaced the covers right away.

It smells bad.

Great little car, peppy, sharp looking both inside and out. It took me a while to get used to revving the engine high for performance. My previous car was north-american...not quite the same :)

My only complaint is that the car smells like rotten eggs. I thought it was only because it was new, but there's over 30,000 Km's on it, and it still smells! It used to be only when the car was idle, but has become more prevalent. I called the dealer, and Honda Canada to get this fixed, and they say there is nothing they can do about it, but try using better gas. They didn't even try anything. So, I've gotten really used to the smell of rotten eggs.

Finally! I'm not the only person who has an RSX that smells like "rotten eggs"...I've taken it to the dealer for the smell and the said to use better gas. Whatever. It still smells terrible, regardless. It is so embarrassing when people ask why your NEW Acura smells the way it does.

There is a special spray that you can spray into the fresh air intake or something like that to help the smell. I had a Jetta that used to do that and they sprayed that stuff into it and it helped me out a lot more.

I believe that the rotten egg smell is due to a problem with the catalytic converter... Check it out. That's what Honda is telling me about my brand new 2004 Accord.

The rotten eggs smell is usually hydrogen sulfide gas, which is generated by catalytic converters when a car is run on gas with a relatively high sulfur content.

If this is the cause, the smell will vary depending on the brand of gas you buy (buying a more expensive grade of gas won't necessarily make a difference). You can minimize it by looking out for desulfurised gas when you fill up.

Not all cars react in this way to sulfur in gas. Some catalytic converters contain nickel compounds that deal with the hydrogen sulfide gas, although there have been concerns that the nickel causes cancer-causing emissions. Therefore some countries have banned catalytic converters containing nickel and not all converters feature it.

One thing that works excellent is to buy one or two of those hanging air fresheners, they work great.

The smell was the result caused by the additives in the fuel mixture. The culprit is the chemical called ethanol. Ethanol can be found in all lines of Sunoco gas, which is derived of canola oil. If you want to avoid the rotten egg smell, change to another brand of gas that doesn't use ethanol as an additive. I've personally had the same experience with 4 separate cars. 2000 Honda Civic SIR, 1998 Acura Integra, 2002 Acura RSX, and 2004 BMW 330Ci. In all instances, it was the gas...

I need an opinion quickly. I live in Ohio, and I've been researching 2002 RSX for a while. I have read nothing, but great things about the car. I am about to in the next two or three days buy a specific one that is Automatic with 50,500 miles for after tax and trade in and all, $14,211.00. The warranty just ended, and it is not certified. Only one owner and it was the guys wife driving it. The only thing ever wrong with it was bad gasoline that needed flushed out and a burnt out headlight. I blue booked the car and it booked for $16,100. I am wondering in your opinions if you think I should continue as planned with this specific RSX, even though it has 50,000+ miles and is not certified, thank you.

The sulfur in gas I believe is from the addition of thiols. since thiols smells so bad, they are added to gas for the detection of gas leaks.

Thiols do smell like rotten eggs, skunk...

Its not ethanol. ethanol is the alcohol in beer, wine vodka, etc.

The advice to avoid gasoline with alcohol additives is incorrect. That won't make the exhaust stink. Besides, in states like Connecticut, ALL the gas is 10% alcohol these days. You have NO choice.

I had this problem and heard the same 'buy different gas' suggestions. In the end the problem went away when I happened to buy a new Oxygen Sensor. I don't have a theory just an observation.