I am sorry if this has been brought up before, but I did a search on "gas odor", and "gas odor hard starting". Nothing came up. Well, the car is very hard to start most of the time. It will shake violently when it dies, on any unsuccesful attempts. It will start right up sometimes when the engine is hot. But not all the time. And, engine hot or not, there is almost always a very strong odor of gasoline. Seems to be coming from the muffler. No smoke can be seen however. I have changed the air filter, fuel filter, spark plugs, both battery cables, and the battery itself. These all needed to be done anyway, and I thought that one, or a combination of these may have some effect, but they have not. Could it be as easy as an o2 sensor? The check engine light has never lit up before. I hope you guys have some ideas, because this is eating my gas up!!!!

so you have a hard time starting it up? Bad fuel pump? Bad injectors? Spark Plug wires? Did you look at those things?
You cranking it is dumping fuel into cylinders so its just burning off the fuel once it starts. Thats probably your gas smell. Someone who knows more about cars then myself shoud chime in. give it some time. Once it starts does it run fine or what?

Checks I would make:-

1. Make sure the supply/return fuel lines are not leaking. Sometimes there will be a small crack in the line, allows the fuel pressure to drop whilst sitting, This obviously causes the gas odor and the hard starting--has to build up the pressure first.

2. Could be the Fuel Pressure Regulator or the Vacuum tube to it. If you pull off the vacuum tube and there is fuel in it the diaphragm has broken. A faulty vacuum tube will not reduce fuel pressure at idle

Just some thoughts

Alont

thanks, I will check those things out.