I bought a beat up old car for the winter a while ago. It looks like the catalytic converter needs to be replaced, but it’s too expensive and not worth doing so for the price I paid for the car.

Sometimes when I’m driving, I can smell fumes inside the cabin. I drive the car a grand total of about 15-20 minutes a day, so I didn’t think it was a big deal.

But now I can smell fumes even when I’m not driving. There have been weeks when the car didn’t give off any smell (I asked others to check), but I could still smell fumes most of the time.

I asked a cousin who is a doctor, and she said smoke gets out of your lungs a few hours later, and shouldn’t be there for days or weeks after exposure.

Does anyone have experience with this? What could be the reason this is happening?