Bottom of car or station tank = dirk/gunk if low

[ammolab]

I often see posts that running your car close to empty or buying gas from "the bottom of the near empty tank", gave me dirt/gunk etc". This can not be...your car tank fuel pick is ALWAYS at the bottom of the tank. If bad stuff is there it will go into the pump when ever you run the car. Unless you have floating dirt which is never mentioned rather than all the stuff that settles "down there" including water.

I bet fuel station tanks do not have floating pickups for pump intakes...so settlement debris will always be at the bottom of the tank in the pickup location. Correct, no?

 

[eljefino]

You couldn't be more right. I've changed old rusty car tanks-- the rust is on the outside and the tanks are still shiny new inside.

 

[gathermewool]

Duh?

 

[Ducked]

Originally Posted By: eljefino
You couldn't be more right. I've changed old rusty car tanks-- the rust is on the outside and the tanks are still shiny new inside.


I've seen rust in every fuel filter I've ever looked at. So your experience isn't mine.

On motorcycles, I've replaced two rusted out tanks. Water settles in the seams and sets up corrosion cells unless you add alcohol to get it out.

Newer plastic tanks don't rust, though, so if you keep saying "fuel tanks don't rust on the inside" it'll eventually become true.

 

[Ducked]

Originally Posted By: ammolab
I often see posts that running your car close to empty or buying gas from "the bottom of the near empty tank", gave me dirt/gunk etc". This can not be...your car tank fuel pick is ALWAYS at the bottom of the tank. If bad stuff is there it will go into the pump when ever you run the car. Unless you have floating dirt which is never mentioned rather than all the stuff that settles "down there" including water.

I bet fuel station tanks do not have floating pickups for pump intakes...so settlement debris will always be at the bottom of the tank in the pickup location. Correct, no?


Its more stirred up when close to empty, so you are more likely to ingest it.

 

[BobsArmory]

Years ago I worked for an environmental clean up company. Did a lot of tank removals/installs at gas stations. You wouldn't believe the amount of dirt in an underground storage tank that is even a couple years old. It was nothing to shovel out 3 to 5 55 gallon drums worth of mud out of a tank. When a fuel truck dumps their load at a gas station, some of that mud is stirred up into the fuel. The filter on the gas pump is supposed to keep that from getting into your car and it works well most of the time but not always. Also you would be surprised to know how many gas stations have removed or bypassed the pump filters to save maintenance costs.

To this day I refuse to fill up at a gas station that has a fuel truck sitting there.

 

[HerrStig]

350 thousand miles on a 99 Camry with the factory installed filter still in service. We must have real dirty gas around here.

 

[blupupher]

I changed the fuel pump in my F150. 184,000 miles on it, only 14,000 of it mine.
Tank had nothing in it that I could see except fuel. Original filter had a brownish tint to it, but not bad.
I run my tank to low all the time also. I also hear that running the tank low will burn the fuel pump out because the fuel cools the pump, but I don't believe that either. I know on my truck the return line basically dumps the fuel on the pump.

 

[The motor guy]

Originally Posted By: eljefino
You couldn't be more right. I've changed old rusty car tanks-- the rust is on the outside and the tanks are still shiny new inside.


I don't think they use metal tanks as often anymore.

 

[The motor guy]

Originally Posted By: BobsArmory
Years ago I worked for an environmental clean up company. Did a lot of tank removals/installs at gas stations. You wouldn't believe the amount of dirt in an underground storage tank that is even a couple years old. It was nothing to shovel out 3 to 5 55 gallon drums worth of mud out of a tank. When a fuel truck dumps their load at a gas station, some of that mud is stirred up into the fuel. The filter on the gas pump is supposed to keep that from getting into your car and it works well most of the time but not always. Also you would be surprised to know how many gas stations have removed or bypassed the pump filters to save maintenance costs.

To this day I refuse to fill up at a gas station that has a fuel truck sitting there.


Where does the dirt come from? It can't be from the truck driver opening the filler opening?

 

[SpeedyG75VW]

A few weeks ago, I had purchased some ethanol free gas from a station that had the older style pumps where there's no credit card reader at the pump (seems like most E0 stations are like this in NC). Anyways, I remembered I had posted here a question about the quality of the E0 gas since I didn't smell any vapors when filling up. Well....after a while (the gas quality question kept being on my mind), I decided to see if there was anything at the bottom of the gas container. Guess what.....found black sediment or dirt on the bottom of my gas containers. Never had this happened before. I think either they didn't have fuel filters on the pumps or the pump's filter wasn't maintained.

I spoke with the manager about my issues and now the pump is covered up and disabled. So does dirt/sediment get into the bottom of the tanks????......I would say yes....

http://www.pure-gas.org/station?station_id=17724

 

[BobsArmory]

Originally Posted By: motor_oil_madman
Originally Posted By: BobsArmory
Years ago I worked for an environmental clean up company. Did a lot of tank removals/installs at gas stations. You wouldn't believe the amount of dirt in an underground storage tank that is even a couple years old. It was nothing to shovel out 3 to 5 55 gallon drums worth of mud out of a tank. When a fuel truck dumps their load at a gas station, some of that mud is stirred up into the fuel. The filter on the gas pump is supposed to keep that from getting into your car and it works well most of the time but not always. Also you would be surprised to know how many gas stations have removed or bypassed the pump filters to save maintenance costs.

To this day I refuse to fill up at a gas station that has a fuel truck sitting there.


Where does the dirt come from? It can't be from the truck driver opening the filler opening?


The fill pipe is a few inches underground under the cover plate that you drive over. The cover plate is not waterproof, water, dirt, sand, salt and debris get underneath the cover plate. There is a cap on the fill pipe with a rubber gasket that seals pretty well when it's new AND when the driver puts the cap back on correctly. Many times I had removed a tank and found that there was no gasket on the fill pipe cap. When it rains or snows water will get under the cover plate if the fill pipe isn't sealed right then all the junk under the cover plate goes right down into the tank. That's just one way but the most common way that junk can get into the tank. If the grade of the parking lot flows toward the fill pipes then you could see many gallons of water flushing down the fill pipe every time it rains along with all the junk it brings with it