Engine died after getting gas

vipercwf

Member
I don't know if it's a coincidence or not, but on the way home my low fuel came on. I usually get gas right away but there was construction so I had to go closer to home then normal and By the time I got gas the needle was below the last bar. Anyways, i put in about 6 gallons of gas, left and shortly after i just felt something funny when I went to accelerate at first I thought it was tranny/awd something of that nature. Then it started doing it again, more and more and within a mile down the road from the gas station car was dead. I tried to restart it, which it managed to start again but sputtered and died. Then it wouldnt start anymore. No idea if being that empty had anything to do with it (I know it isn't good to let them get that empty) or if maybe I got bad gas(if thats a possibility) No idea about this kinda thing, totally lost and don't even know where to start really so any advice/suggestion I would greatly appreciate.
 
Thanks, I'll try that. Does this sound like it could be symptoms of my fuel pump going out? Is it common to just go out like that out of no where with no forewarning? I was thinking about getting one of the scan tools from autozone to see if I'm getting any kind of error codes? What's the best way to determine if it is my fuel pump?

Thanks for all the help
 
Thanks for your input everyone I appreciate it. Am I hurting anything by cranking it alot to try and get it to start once I use the iso-heet?
 
Went to the gas station that I got gas from. When I pulled in there were stickers on all the mid grade and premium gas pumps....I knew right then, so I went in to ask if they've had problems with anyone having water in their gas. The guy admitted (reluctantly) that they did have the problem, but that I would need to speak to manager who wont be in until tomorrow morning.

What do you think, should I still just try iso heet? My biggest concern is if there was water in the gas what kind of damage could that have done? Just not sure how to handle the situation now although I'm glad to have found out the cause. Just concerned the water in there will cause damage, even if it's in the long run.
 
well you got 2 options.. 1 you can get iso heet which will solve the problem and then forget all about it, car should run fine after you do this.. or 2 you can file a Civil Suit against the owner of the gas station, which means dont start your car, i hope you saved the receipt from the gas station, or atleast got a receipt, get a sample from your gas tank and use that as evidence in court..if you dont have a receipt of any kind your kinda screwed even though the attendant told you they've had issues..
 
Gas Station agreed to Fix the car. They had it towed to shop and I just got it back today. It's running fine, however my check engine light is on. I told the mechanic and he cleared the code. When I left it blinked several times and came back on permanently. He told me that the octane sensor in the gas tank must still be sensing the moisture (does this make sense even, i'm really naive with this kind of thing) Anyways he told me let the tank go almost empty and then fill it back up, and bring the car back and he'll reset the code again. Does this make sense to you guys?
I'm just concerned - my car is running fine I am just concenred of any long term damage or maybe there's something else wrong? Maybe I'll take it to autozone this weekend to just see what error code they are getting and if it makes sense to what they said.
 
Well I got through the tank of gas that was in it, pretty much filled it up with new premium. The car runs fine for the most part, but I can feel slight misfire every now and then. I'm still only on my first tank of new gas so I'm hoping it'll only improve. My car was running good the other day and the engine light went off, but came back on not long after. This morning when I started my car and headed to work it ran a lil rough while cold but seem to have gotten better. So my question is do I just not worry and assume it'll just get better with multiple tanks off good gas (seems to make sense) I'm just concerned I'm not doing the right thing, any suggestions would be greatly apprecitated. Thanks everyone.
 
What did they do to "fix it" exactly? I would think they'd pull the tank, drain watery fuel, replace fuel filter, etc.


The octane (knock) sensor will retard or advance the spark as required. Run another package of ISO-HEET thru I'd say. Otherwise have them check/replace your spark plugs. This is an excellent guide to reading plugs: http://www.theultralightplace.com/sparkplugs.htm
 
Last edited:
If the shop worked on the car I don't think you should be experiencing any problems. If they drained the tank there should have been so little moisture left behind that it should not affect anything. If the CEL is still on after running out a full tank I would take it back to the shop. Another bottle of Heet would not hurt.

Did you ever find out what the code was?
 
Shop told me they used dry gas and blew out lines. Said error code was from the octane sensor and to run a full tank t hr u come back and theyll clear the code. Ive noticed a cple times the CEL blinked 7.5 times. Def still getting some kind of misfire at times then others car runs real good. Think I should just use isoheet again and see if it improves w another tank thru?I just dont want to do any perm damage am I hurting anything by trying to let it 'clear out' itself or should I take it back now? I realy apprec all your suggestions
 
It's not hurting anything. Water can't be ignited hence the car running like s***. Use iso heet as much as you want. I would still go back and demand they fix the sensor and/or spark plugs.
 
So it's obviously been awhile since this all happened, but with the weather turning colder I've noticed my car running bad in the morning when first starting. It seems to be slightly backfiring and the noise mostly seems to come from the back of the vehicle, like the muffler(?) I don't know what that means. I've been using iso heet again the last couple of tanks and will continue using with every tank now. The car seems to drive totally fine once its warm, no issues, but def crappy when its cold and poping noise back from the muffler. I just don't get how after that many tanks of gas i've gone through how there would be that much moisture left, or what else this could be caused from. Any insight/advice? I'm obviously pretty much screwed since its been this long as far as them fixing it, atleast i'd think so since its been like over a month.
 
well get ready cuz it means some very bad things my man,

the top two most devestating are
1) ur car is getting older with time
2) its cold outside
oh and i forgot about 3...
you might be paranoid... and we all saw what happens to ppl who r paranoid, in that russel crowe movie, a beautiful mind

jk.... i wonder wtf their talking about bad fuel octane sensor, the only thing in the tank i believe is the fuel pressure sensor, if they thinks its some flex fuel car then that explains why they prolly tried to dilute their gas with ethanol to rip off their customers, and i dont think there is even an octane sensor per se, but a fuel density sensor on the cars that do have it, cars sense octane pseudo automatically like our car, since the random knock ppl see at light throttle in open loop, is the car trying to constantly double check its "limits" as it can only do that at light load safely and then modify the fueling tables accordingly for when you go WOT, the only time you need a fuel density is when you doing crazy octane shifts life regular to e85(how long do you think it would take a car to learn its not running on 110octane fuel anymore, i dont wanna find out heh that for sure) and then you would be using a totally different map for the specified density of fuel :)

i wish they would drown the guy who proposed we all switch to e10 in e10, at least e85 isnt as dumb a product, at least they store it properly in special stations where the ethanol tank is seperate from the gas, unlike these stations that "woops" sold u gas that only expired because the above mentioned pr!k didnt want ethanol to seem like something that costs more money to implement, so they just sell u gas that already has half its shelf life gone before u even put it in ur tank, unlike th e85 which is mixed at the nozzle... uhg politics... i like how ppl groan about the goverment telling them what insurance to have, yet u cant find a drop of ethanol free gas within 100miles of dc and no one notices that their cars suddenly have a galactic SHton of fuel filter/pump/evap/tank issues... ethanol was the best invention the car industry ever came up with to force us all to have to buy new cars as our old ones get ruined at a nice slow rate
 
Well i am def getting a missfire in cylinder 1 code, and I don't think it's just from my car getting older as i didn't have any issues or CEL and the moment i got the bad gas 1/4mile down the road my car broke down and the CEL came on, and it's been on since. When the gas station agreed to pay to fix it, the shop got it running but when I left the CEL was still on (Car seemed to run ok- though it was already warm at that point). The mechanic said the knock sensor was probably still detecting moisture, that I needed to run a cple tanks of gas through it. The CEL is still on and i've just recently noticed that its running alot rougher when its cold, and you can hear it backfire back towards the back of the exhaust until it gets warm then seems to run OK for the most part once warm. I don't think its a coincidence that nothing was wrong with my car, I get bad gas it breaks down and the CEL comes on and has stayed on reporting a missfire all this time. Can bad gas cause anything like the sensors or plugs etc to go bad and cause the missfire? I'm just totally lost.
 
^^what he said, give us a list of what was replaced. your gas/water might not be the problem anymore.
 

New Threads and Articles

Back