Bad gas?

[mcheath]

Added three gallons to the truck last night at a Shell station. Not a real station, you know the ones with a guy in uniform and a service bay and a "ding ding" ringer cord when you drive in. Ha, don't recall the last time I saw one of those in Calif, a lifetime ago. Anyways, the truck was running great, bought my gas, drove to the grocery store about a mile away, bought stuff, came out and...

Hard to start.

Hmm. It's never hard to start.

Then it idled funky. When I pulled out on the street it almost stalled. The funky idle, it loaded up and started dying at idle, got worse on the way home, and had a massive flat spot on acceleration. At home it sounded like it was seriously missing and shook at idle.

Well the last thing done to it was the gas. So today I added some SeaFoam, 1 oz per gallon, drove it to Chevron and put in three gallons of their premium, and drove it the same route as last night. Now it would hardly start when I headed to the Chevron.

By the time I got home it was running good again. Now it's fine, runs like it's old self.

Bad gas?

[flyboy2610]

Sounds like it. Maybe the Shell station had some water in their storage tank. These trucks don't seem to like ethanol too well, either.

[mcheath]

Yeah I got a tank with a lot of water once, my truck of the time would not run and I had to drain all that gas out.

Drove it again tonight, it's better for sure, but started doing a bit of the crummy idle again. Just like that, it was smooth and clean, then rumpa rumpa rumpa. Guess I will pull the fuel filter and see what's up there as well.

[Donnie]

Even though I like to support my local mom & pop's stores..........when it comes time to fuel up ...I hit the newer stations with a high load of traffic....I'll even bypass a station if a tanker is filling the tanks.....a bit anal, my wife says, but I don't like water in my fuel....it takes all the fun out of paying 4 bux a gallon

[jzjames]

Yes 4 bucks a gallon, hardly anyone complaining anymore. They knew they could get us there eventually.

I have gotten bad gas, and called them on it. Dont try to argue with the gas station. "They test the tanks for water". So just bend over again.

[MaxKlinger]

It's also possible the guy was an idiot and dispensed diesel oil or kerosene in there. If it's mixed with regular gas the truck will run but reluctantly.

4 bucks a gallon, hardly anyone complaining anymore.

I just got back from being abroad for a few weeks and saw that the gas station across from my work has regular $4.079/gal. Wow! I'm surprised you're not hearing the news people repeating the annoying phrase "pain at the pump" over and over again like they used to.

[NM5K]

Even though I like to support my local mom & pop's stores..........when it comes time to fuel up ...I hit the newer stations with a high load of traffic....I'll even bypass a station if a tanker is filling the tanks.....a bit anal, my wife says, but I don't like water in my fuel....it takes all the fun out of paying 4 bux a gallon

I never stop for gas if a tanker is there. Sure, they have filters, etc, but they still stir up the debris
in the tanks for a while. I've had what I thought was bad gas several times in my driving lifetime..
I assume what causes the worst running is usual water.

[mcheath]

Wow! I'm surprised you're not hearing the news people repeating the annoying phrase "pain at the pump" over and over again like they used to.

Yeah that is curious eh? I paid $4.29 a gallon for the Chevron premium I bought, getting close to my all time high which was $4.79. Not hearing any outrage at all.

Rex seems to have gotten over his "stomach" flu of the bad gas, Running normal now all the time.

[67fordtruck]

From the symptoms it sounds like the float needle is getting stuck open intermittently. That is how mine ran. The tell tale sign was the black exhaust smoke.

[mcheath]

An interesting idea. Curiously there was no black exhaust smoke during the rough running time. When I bought this truck the PO had it incredibly leaned out, so much that I was surprised it ran. Choke fully disabled, mixture screws in almost fully, that coupled with a bad accelerator pump made it a thrill ride!