She called me because she couldn’t get her car started after work. We had to get it towed out of the underground parking which is quite a pain in the ass apparently.
I spent a couple hours troubleshooting the issue (smoky exhaust, barely started, ran like shit) and I burned out the starter in the process and had to put a new one in. Starters in these little 3.7L engines are pretty pathetic.
At some point in all this she mentioned she had filled up before driving to work, so I figured out how to jumper the fuel pump and pumped out this piss-colored junk. Feels oily like diesel, doesn’t burn explosively like you’d expect with straight gas.
Fresh fuel and some Seafoam snake oil to maybe clean injectors. Since I didn’t drop the tank to clean it perfectly, she’s going to put small amounts in for a few fills and burn it off completely between fills because the solution to pollution is dilution.
Her receipt showed she uses the gas pump, not the diesel, so I’m wondering how many people got to deal with this bullshit since I’m guessing the station got an entire compartment contaminated. Haven’t bothered to talk to the company, since I did the work myself and they certainly aren’t going to reimburse me for my time.
Ah well, it’s an excuse to do a pile of other maintenance I’d planned anyway and had parts for.
Wife is happy she isn’t buying a new car. Happy wife, happy life.
this happened to my mom years ago, sometime in the mid 80s. she never pumped her own gas unless she had no choice. the culprit was a full serve station. they put in diesel instead of regular (car was from the 70s).
nowadays that couldn’t happen unless the tanks at the station were wrong (tanker delivery screwing up). unleaded-only cars (the norm now) have narrower openings and pump nozzles to match. diesel and the old ‘regular’ pump nozzles literally won’t fit.
Neighbour of mine told me that they had broken down because they put diesel in their petrol car. My first question was about the nozzle not fitting. They said they thought it was odd that it didn’t, and it took ages to fill the tank because it kept overflowing. So I wouldn’t say it can’t happen.
true. “this shouldn’t happen” would be a more correct phrasing.