Bad gas - suspecting fair amount

[Ramblin Fever]

of water.

For the last 4 fill-ups, 22 gallons worth, I'd been using our King Soopers grocery gas station - something I don't normally do.

I generally buy gas at Shell, Diamond Shamrock or Texaco - but the price was right; .10 cheaper a gallon.

Long story short, for the last 2 weeks truck's been running real rough, mainly at idle. You could feel the roughness through the gas pedal when stopped at lights - like someone had their stereo too loud and vibrating your vehicle.

And it's also been sluggish to start, almost like the fuel pump or maybe starter was on it's way out.

Well yesterday, I stop at a pay-toll on the highway, after having been cruising along at 70mph - coasting into the toll booth at maybe 10-15mph, truck just suddenly dies. No warning; no idling too low; no nothing

Put in park and restarted it, starts up fine, just sluggish, no CEL, no nothing, again, just the rough idling through the gas pedal.

Rest of the way to work, truck was fine.

Figured I wasn't gonna worry unless it stalled/died again, something this truck has NEVER done before.

Anyway, I decided to get gas at the Shell gas station round the corner from work, tank was low. Put 14 gallons of gas and was on my way home - 25 miles.

By the time I hit mile 12 - truck smoothed out incredibly, no rough running, idling. Figured it was all in my head, until I had to make 3 different stops. Each time I came back out and started the truck, it started right quick, no hesitation/sluggishness.

Water or no water - not sure; but I think it's awfully funny how it's running perfect again.

Gonna throw another bottle of HEET in next fill-up, just incase.

 

[nobadges]

Sounds like water. Definately something yucky in there.
I am not familiar with Heet, I assume thats a water dispersant/gasline antifreeze?
Here, we suffer brutal cold in winter (-30c) and problems with water condensation in the fuel is common. Adding gasline antifreeze becomes a necessity.
Shell is well known here for "seasonally adjusted formulas" and provide good clean gas.
With the higher gas prices lately a lot of drivers have tried out cheaper or discount stations. I think the old experession "you get what you pay for" holds true.
Gasline antifreeze, isopropyl alcohol, or methyl hydrate work wonders to keep you burning smoothly.

Urban Legend or truth??
Never fill up at a station if you see the delivery tanker filling the tanks. Apparently that stirs up any guck in the underground tanks.
---
I was told that by a military mechanic some 25 years ago, and have heeded the advice...although I haven't seen any proof of this.

 

[frankiee]

I came off a tanker that carries fuels. 14.5 million liters. We quite often use .73 as a specific gravity but it varies alot.
A person would think that it is aslways the same but it is not. We dip for water and it is there quite often. The higher ups phone the company that we are hauling for and they make the call whether to keep going or not. Sometimes they get us to mix in stuff and sometimes not.
What I am saying is that fuels are not consistant. Has a lot to do with the buyer as to how much junk in it that they will take a chance with it. When we clean the tanks we find that gasoline is not pure.

 

[nobadges]

For that reason its not a bad idea to add some water dispersant every second tank or so...even in the summer months.

 

[nobadges]

"Iso" may refer to isopropyl alcohol...which apparently has a little better action than the standard Ethyl Alcohol.
You can get the same results using Methyl Hydrate...much cheaper, you can buy it from paint suppliers (Home Depot) in quart/gallon sizes.
If you use an ethanol blend, water is (should) not a problem.

 

[nobadges]

...forgot to mention:
Methyl Hydrate is just another alcohol. Also called wood alcohol or methanol.

 

[Ramblin Fever]

I won't try to skimp again, that's for sure.

In regards to HEET - which is the best one to use?

There's regular HEET (yellow bottle) or Iso-Heet (red bottle)?

 

[glennc]

I've never had a problem with cheap gas, though I'm sure it happens. The Golden King Soopers is my standard fillup location - I've probably bought several thousand gallons there.

I have a hunch that one reason gas prices have managed to stay so high for so long (hence record profits) is that the driving public is not particularly willing to seek out the lowest price. I see price differentials of twenty cents a gallon routinely, and plenty of people using the most expensive breed.

Just to do some quick math, if you can save 0.10/gal throughout the life of a car (say 200k) then you will save around $700 (30mpg) - $1500 (13mpg).

- Glenn

 

[wiswind]

Many areas of the country have a "Summer" and a "Winter" formulation of gasoline....as mandated by the EPA. I live in one of those areas. There have been issues at the change over time in the past. Last fall, here in Southeast Wisconsin, there was an issue with some sulfer (as per the news media) in the gasoline that caused problems with some people's fuel injectors.
I would also guess (an uneducated guess)that there would be some re-learning needed by a car's computer for different gasoline formulations.

 

[Master ACiD]

iso alcohol and even ethanol dont see to let water mix with gasoline.

i had this same problem one time and ended up pulling my fuel tank to clean it out. i drained about a liter of water from the tank. there was some rust in the bottom too, probably from the water.

i was determined to not have this problem anymore, so i decided to check out some of the conventional alcohols which are touted as being able to mix water with gasoline.

i took a granulated 1 liter cylinder and filled it up with 200ml of 87 octane non oxygenated gasoline. i then added 100ml of tap water. nothing really happend even after swishing it about.
so then i added 100ml of ethanol i got from a paint supply store. again nothing happend even after swishing it about. the only thing that mixed was the water and the ethanol. now there was a 200ml mix of water-ethanol, and 100ml of gasoline. i could not for the life of me get the ethanol and water to mix with gasoline. as soon as i stopped shaking it, the water ethanol mix setteld right down to the bottom and the gasoline went up top.

so next i dumped this contens out into my used oil bucket and tried the expirement over with isopropyl alcohol.
it was the exact same thing. 200ml of gasoline, 100ml of water, 100ml of iso alcohol mixed together made 200ml of alcohol mix and 200ml of gasoline.

the iso alcohol and water were unable to mix with gasoline, even after prolonged shaking and swirling.

 

[oilyriser]

I think I managed to mix around 1% water into gasoline when I made a 10% isopropyl 90% gas mixture. The amount that can dissolve depends on the temperature, too.

 

[Ramblin Fever]

I'm not 100% sure what it was, but it ran terribly for those 2 weeks.

Been back on Shell gas for almost a week now, it's running normal again, everyday so far.

 

[Shaman]

Remember that the water doesn’t have to really mix with the fuel, it just needs to be able to burn enough to get out the car. Light the mix on fire and see what happens. I am guessing that most will burn, but some water will be left, but less water than what would burn without the alcohol. Plus, there should be less than 200 ml of alcohol if I remember another post correctly.

 

[Lumberg]

I thought isopropyl alcohol, water, and gas formed an azeotrope.

 

[Kestas]

I've had water-in-gas problems a number of times. You first need to properly diagnose the problem. Pump some gas from your fuel line into a glass container. Look for water at the bottom of the container. The only fix I found that works was to remove the tank, dry it, and flush all the fuel lines.

 

[TheTanSedan]

Another reason to use FP-60 in all fuel. Plus, ten cents/gallon isn't even a 10% savings.

 

[Audity]

Just wondering - looks like the water absorbers/dispersants mentioned are all alcohols of one sort or another.

Is it possible that the alcohol in current pump gas acts as its own water remedy, thereby making some of these additives unnecessary? I don't know if we're talking about similar compounds or not.

There is an extensive class of alcohol-based liquids with which I am very cozy, but I haven't done the research into this particular application...

 

[Kestas]

I'm not a big fan of using alcohol to deal with water problems anyhow. The alcohol not only mixes with the water, it also mixes with the gasoline. That means if you add 8 ozs alcohol to 10 gallons gasoline, very little of it mixes into the water. The water now contains less than 1% alcohol.... not much better at burning than pure water.

Good point on gasohol... perhaps it is more tolerant of water.

We need good hard chemistry information to answer some of these questions.

 

[Tosh]

Master Acid: But mixing equal parts water and alcohol with gasoline and expecting a homogenous solution isn't fair. What happens if one mixed in 1% water after mixing the gasoline and ethanol? Isn't this a more real world scenario?

 

[Malaclypse]

The main point of alcohol additives that bond with water is bringing the contaminants to the point of combustion where they can be removed. If the water were left un-touched in the fuel tank it would simply fester and rust whatever it was in contact with.

ISO-Heet is the best fuel additive for vehicles that -have- Oxygen Sensors (which means anything built since 1990). Off-brand or questionable gasoline should be avoided as continued use can easily result in very costly repairs.

The big question about fueling station is the age/condition of their tanks. Has the company recently been bought out, has the station been renovated? How fresh is the concrete you stand on? What sort of major brands does the station affiliate itself with?

Aside from that, when you get a tank of fuel from a station or brand you wouldn't normally use, keep the receipt, mark the date and station location as well. This could help you win back the money that the comapnie's owe you for the faults of their distributors.

Me? I use Mobil, Exxon, Shell, and Chevron exclusively and have had -no- fuel problems what so ever.