Bad fuel can ruin your week.....

[wes]

Well I found out today that the problem with my car is bad fuel. The dealer said it doesn't even look like fuel and I'll get to see it when I pick the car up hopefully tomorrow. I received the car on October 19th from Florida and had a trouble free 50 or 60 miles or so and then decided to go to the gas station for the first fill up. After the short trip home of about 5 miles I parked the car in the garage for the night. The next day was spent detailing and cleaning as I wanted to see how she looked clean. Later that night when we took the car out for some pictures it threw a code P0121 and P0123. After trying to reset it and looked at the ways to fix it myself I thought it would be over. Long story short it was not. I drove the car to get my exhaust fixed the nest day and it kept wanting to die on me and was very rough to drive. The throttle response was terrible and at idle it would be anywhere from 50-1800 RPM's. The next day after the exhaust work was done I was ready to take it to the dealership to have it looked at. Well, about a 1/10th of a mile down the road the car was so bad I couldn't even drive it. It was bucking and squatting and shooting black smoke out the exhaust. SOOO the tow truck had to be called and off to Tomball dodge it went (they are excellent btw). Comes to find out it was bad gas and its gonna cost about 2000 bucks to fix. They need to drop the tank and drain it, replace spark plugs, clean throttle body, clean fuel rails, clean injectors, and replace the plug wires. Needless to say I will be calling the gas station and be making a claim. I don't care what I have to do but I will not pay for this for bad gas on their part. Anyways sorry for the novel but if anyone has any problems like I had I thought it might be worth a shot to post it up. I just want my car back already.

Wes

 

[SquadX]

That f'in *****. Best to getting it resolved. By the way what gas station was this? I try to stick with sunoco if possible.

 

[eucharistos]

that stinks man

let us know if you get anywhere with the station

i've used mostly costco for years in all my cars no problemo

 

[1TONY1]

Let me, or at least someone else with an injector flow bench/cleaner check and clean your injectors instead of just running the junk through it on the car like some shops do. This way you will KNOW they are ok instead of just hoping. I also have new filters for the side feed injectors like yours. Those cannot even be acquired at the dealership. I have plenty of Viper owner references.

http://forums.viperclub.org/rt-10-gts-discussions/614923-great-injector-service-armour-racing.html

 

[BlackSnake99]

How do you know you didn't get bad gas in it from Florida? Had it sat for a long time before you bought it? Was the car ever in water?

 

[wes]

I went to a conoco on bay area south of Houston. Been there before but it must of been a bad batch...definitely ***** though.

 

[V10SpeedLuvr]

Let me, or at least someone else with an injector flow bench/cleaner check and clean your injectors instead of just running the junk through it on the car like some shops do. This way you will KNOW they are ok instead of just hoping. I also have new filters for the side feed injectors like yours. Those cannot even be acquired at the dealership. I have plenty of Viper owner references.

http://forums.viperclub.org/rt-10-gts-discussions/614923-great-injector-service-armour-racing.html

+1, let Tony clean/flow check the injectors. His service is FAR superior to any "induction service" a dealership will do! Tony cleaned mine and I was very happy with his service! Quick turn around time and even sent a print out with the results from the flow checking.

 

[plumcrazy]

listen to tony.

 

[RevHeat]

Several things to help not get bad gasoline:

1) Never fill up when the gas tanker truck is at the gas station.
2) Make sure you go to a high volume gas station to purchase your 93 octane gas.


Several things not to do when gas is low:

1) Never track your viper with less then a quarter of a tank of gas.
2) Suggested that you always have a half tank of gas when doing all out runs (i.e. quarter mile)

From your resident NOOB!! Rev

 

[jdeft1]

All good advise...but....

I doubt the fuel is that bad. I've never found bad gas in a likely million miles of driving... You haven't either. (I'd say)
Usually bad gas burns right through and you'd never know it!! It could happen but it's very unlikely.



The fuel trucks carry every kind of fuel .. The truck that carries your gas may have held 7500 gal. of K1,D1,D2 on it's last trip.... Gas stations here in th the good ol' USA don't store fuel for long or risk H2O contamination....

Drive that car!!!

 

[wes]

Believe me I wish I could of drove through it but it was so bad I couldn't go above 15 miles an hour without it feeling like the transmission and engine was about to explode..they have a sample of the gas they saved so I'm going to see what it looks like.

 

[wes]

Not to doubt you but I had an aunt just last year that got bad gas from a station in Dallas as well as others and the company had to pay for the repairs. It just definitely ***** considering it was my first tank ever.

 

[BlknBlu]

I would go back to the gas station and ask if anyone else has reported this issue without saying anything about your car.

Good luck

Bruce

 

[wes]

called the gas station today and the guy working said call back tomorrow when the manager was there. I asked if he heard of any problems with the gas and of course he said no (like they would admit it anyways). I'll talk to the manager tomorrow and see what he says. The gas was purchased on the 19th of October so I'm sure they have changed the gas by now. I went by tonight and went to the same pump and got some gas so I can compare. If they don't do anything at the station level I'll have to call corporate and go down to the Texas Dept. of Agriculture and see if they can test the fuel to see whats wrong.

 

[BlknBlu]

save the fuel in your car too.

Bruce

 

[wes]

yeah the dealership has already saved me a sample of the fuel. If I'm the only incident of it though I have a feeling it's gonna be a pain.

 

[jdeft1]

Good luck. Underground fuel tanks are full of crap. If you bought when the tank was low and at an old station..... They could have filled your tsnk with mud.

I guess I've been lucky!

 

[Fatboy 18]

There was a problem at a gas station overhere recently in the UK.

The tanker driver filled the underground unleaded tank with Diesel and the Diesel tank with unleaded!!!! Loads of people filled up and within a mile or so broke down! Thats going to be one big insurance claim

 

[ViperGTS]

yep, sounds like he could have filled up with diesel

 

[Big Al]

Like RevHeat said NEVER buy fuel when the tank truck is there as the unloading product stirs up the sediment and any condensation that would not be pumped up when the storage tank is still.

 

[ViperTony]

Good luck. Underground fuel tanks are full of crap. If you bought when the tank was low and at an old station..... They could have filled your tsnk with mud.

I guess I've been lucky!

I pulled into my Sunoco station in town (i've been using them for 10 years) in the Viper 3 weeks ago. The owner immediately ran out and told me NOT to fill my tank because the 93 tank was 'empty'. He was worried I that I would pump crud into my engine. Although, I'm certain that had his idiot son been there I would be in the same predicament as the OP. Fortunately, the owner is Mopar guy and knows a thing or two about engines, gas and crud.

 

[99 R/T 10]

I had an incident about 4 years ago at a Conoco. With in about 2 miles car started to run very badly, popping, detonation. Drove back trying not to get into boost at all. Talked to the manager and then to the Regional guy. Flat bedded the car home and drained the tank. They ended up paying me $800 for my time. Wasted a whole day fixing their screw up.

 

[ViperCLKGTR]

Not what the OP wants to hear but sadly I worked for Wal-Mart Company(Sam's Club) straight out of high school 4 years ago. There was an incident where our regular unleaded tank was about 50% water/40% gasoline and we knew it but never shut off the pumps and CONTINUED to allow customers to pump gas into their tanks. While this was happening we were all gathered into our HR's office room and threatened if anyone "so much as leads on" that this was happening or that we knew it was immediate termination. When claims of watered down fuel tanks started being reported and what not Wal-Mart denied and that was it. No one ever made it pass that

 

[Tom F&L GoR]

Not what the OP wants to hear but sadly I worked for Wal-Mart Company(Sam's Club) straight out of high school 4 years ago. There was an incident where our regular unleaded tank was about 50% water/40% gasoline and we knew it but never shut off the pumps and CONTINUED to allow customers to pump gas into their tanks. While this was happening we were all gathered into our HR's office room and threatened if anyone "so much as leads on" that this was happening or that we knew it was immediate termination. When claims of watered down fuel tanks started being reported and what not Wal-Mart denied and that was it. No one ever made it pass that

This cannot be accurate. Water and gasoline mix only in parts per million quantities. And the pick up tube (where the fuel is sucked from) is a few inches from the bottom of the tank. This allows the water to be periodically removed from a bottom drain. The tube is a nominal 5% volume up off the bottom. If the level of water in the underground Walmart tank was any more than 5%, the pick up tube would **** pure water and the customer wouldn't make it out of the station.

For those unlucky drivers that do slurp some water while refueling, it will stumble, run rough, have no power. The fuel filter may plug because some filter media absorb water and stop all flow. The use of ethanol (which absorbs water) has dried out underground tanks so this problem is rare and the only way to find water these days is after rain or flood.

 

[eucharistos]

tom

answered several questions i had

thanks