It must be leaving a trail of raw fuel out the tailpipe.
Years ago Ex-Gf's mom had a V8 Dodge that ran poorly. I mean, she'd let it warm up for at least 20 minutes before going anywhere and I observed huge wet spots on the ground under the tailpipe after such starts. She'd brought the car to a local garage for service multiple times for the problem yet after what had to have been over $1000 worth of parts and labor, nothing changed. The entire ignition system had been replaced including computer. This went on for- I don't know- a year? It was a long time, part of it prior to my knowing them.
GF inherits the car and I finally decide to get to the bottom of this nonsense. Took all of an hour or so to deduce that it was flooding badly, to pop the lid off that nasty '80s 4bbl, pull the pair of floats out and chuck 'em into a pail of water, and watch one of them sink to the bottom like an anchor. Run to the parts store and I don't know- $7 later?- had the float replaced and the car running like a champ.
To this day I rarely miss an opportunity to badmouth that shop. What an elementary FAIL. It's such a ginormous fail that I think they were screwing their naive female customer on purpose.
The point? Oh yeah- gallons and gallons of gas straight out the tailpipe; must have been some into the crankcase too. Stupid thing must have gotten single-digit fe.
