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breathing gas fumes is a bad thing it will kill brain cells but... most cleaning products do too so does drinking alchohal. but yeah its not good for you i would be more worried about the fire hazard then brain damage. and she should have the windows down when she drives because it will slow her reaction time if shes breathing in fumes too long. im sure you dont want her crashing into someone cause she was a little spaced out on the fumes. Depending on what kinda shape the car is in the fumes could be comming from all sorts of places. emmisions systems not doing the job right a leak in the fuel lines or gas tank or a bad gasket under the carberator or even gas spraying up through the air filter. or a leaky fuel pump. when the car is off and cooled down i would suggest looking at the top of the engine for any wet spots or places that look cleaner then they should be the gas basicly works as a degreaser and will leave a nice clean spot or even a puddle of gas on the intake manifold if the carb is leaking. If the leak happens between the gas tank and the fuel pump the risk of fire isnt all that bad really because the gas will hit stuff that wont be too hot. car frame underbody and the street basicly. but.... if its between the fuel pump and the carb its bad because it will leak right on the hot engine and maybe the spark plugs distriubter and all the wonderful wires under the hood and it will do it with some pressure as the fuel pump will keep throwing more gas onto the fire after it does start to burn. and that gets bad real fast. A friend of mine had his carb start to leak gas on him and it sprayed gas all over the engine and started a nice fire burnt up the car very fast flames pouring out from under the hood. Depending on how bad the fumes are it could be very unsafe. gas dosnt burn itself but the fumes do when its mixed in the air thick enough it will burn like crazy. and if its been absorbed into the seats and head liner and stuff yeah that will burn alot faster then normal.
Do your girlfriend a big favor and get that car fixed for her or drive it off a cliff or something. in the mean time if you have a car of your own or one you can borrow from parents or whatever offer to drive whenever you can. I dunno how old you are or what your money situation is but.. a new $800 beater car thats safe to drive would make a nice gift for the girlfriend. Or at least take it to a few diffrent mechanics. if they cant find anything wrong when you can smell gas they dont know what they are doing. or didnt try hard enough.
Smelling gas might not mean anything too important health wise but burns from the gas going up in flames does.
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