Also, avoid gas pumps with questionable gas quality.
This is good info worth repeating.
Roughly 6 years ago I moved to a different city and I started buying gas at a different station. Not long after, I started getting occasional cold hard starts and misfiring on my daily driver. Didn’t think much of it, car was high mileage and started thinking it was a bad engine valve.
Two years later I bought a new car with a GDI engine and after maybe 2,000 miles on the ODO I started getting occasional hard starts. Again, didn’t think much of it since it was an occasional occurrence. About a year later with the occasional cold hard starts still happening, I began wondering, could it be the gas? I stopped visiting the usual gas station I pumped gas at and sure enough, after a few tankfuls both cars no longer experienced any cold hard starting. It’s been 2 years now.
Gas station in question is a 7-Eleven/Chevron. Ever since I began using this station I have experienced “slow pumps”. It seemed like every other week it went from normal flow to slow. I now believe they have a slow leak that is leaking water into the underground tanks, causing issues. I now purchase almost all of my gasoline at QT, RaceTrac, or large travel centers/truck stops when I’m traveling. Never an issue with a slow pump, never any engine performance issues. I’m not a Costco member so I can’t use them.
I no longer visit smaller convenience store outfits for gas. Most of them are franchises who don’t care about anything except saving money anywhere they can. If the store looks like crap, what do you think the condition of the storage tanks and piping looks like? Several years ago I posted on BITOG my misfortune of pumping diesel fuel into my gasoline vehicle. Short story is the fuel delivery driver accidentally dumped diesel and regular unleaded into the wrong underground tanks. This was a 7-Eleven/Shell station. They made it right and paid for all the engine repairs (tuneup really).
Long story short, I’ve been hit twice now by different 7-Eleven stores with branded fuel. Fuel quality is very important.
