B-ran

So I got in my car today and was heading over to me madre's house to visit. The fuel light came on and so I headed to a BP near her house. I've stopped here before for gas and never had any issues. Anyhow. I put like $25 worth of premium in the car and pulled out of the station. I noticed some hesitation as I turned through the intersection. By the time I was going straight it was chugging bad. Lurching and sputtering. I pulled into a neighborhood and as I came to a stop she just died on me. I tried starting it a few times and nothing. I went back to the gas station to make sure I didn't accidentally put diesel in the car, nope, they don't have diesel at all there.

Eventually it started and managed a rough idle. If I gave it gas it stumbled and hesitated and then letting off the gas the revs fell lower than normal and it seemed like it would die again. Eventually was able to get it moving, slowly, as my mom's house was only a quarter mile or so away. By the time I got it back it was ideling okay. But give it more than quarter throttle or up to 3000 rpms and the engine seems to be starved and stumbles. Also I smell a strange burning smell. It's not oil or gas smell. It smells acrid. I don't know how else to describe it. Please tell me your ideas. She's a 99 C2, cable throttle.

extanker

any white smoke from the exhaust ?

DBJoe996

Someone might have dropped the wrong fuel in the station tank. Has happened before. I would drain the tank. Disconnect at fuel pump under battery tray. Short the fuel pump relay and let it pump the tank dry. Connect a hose where you disconnect and have an appropriate sized catch container. Also maybe water in the gas. Either way ditch it

B-ran

Nothing especially that I noticed. It's rainy and cold today so seeing the exhaust doesn't seem out of the oridinary.

dgi 07

Fuel Contamination...

extanker

it's kinda sounding like water in the fuel .......ask the gas station if anyone else got dosed,from my experience there maybe a pack of cars got it....rare just one car

B-ran

Thanks for the replies and suggestions everyone! Looks like I'll be draining this tank out. And extanker I did ask the attendant he said no one else had complained about any issues after. I guess my follow up question would be if there were water in the gas or if it is just bad gas, is there any permenant damage that could have happened to the engine? And why might it seems to run okay at idle but once I give it anything over quarter throttle it runs like it wants to give up on life?

Slakker

I accidentally put 87 in my tank. Not once, but twice. I had the exact same symptoms both times.

B-ran

I did go back to the station and made sure that I did in fact put premium in. But I wonder if either the guy that fills up their underground put the wrong gas in, or if was near the bottom of the tank and they had water in it. Either way, super frustrating lol

Slakker

It's really pretty simple, you just need a set of jumper cables, some electrical tape, a small jumper wire, some fuel line hose from Lowe's (1/4" ID I believe but can look up for sure if you need me to) and some fuel cans.

B-ran

Thanks! Forgive my ignorance but what exactly is a small jumper wire? The idea of using the fuel pump to just pump all the gas out is nice, but the obvious electricity near gas flowing slightly freaks me out haha

Slakker

I think I used about a 2" piece of 12 or 14 gauge THHN wire for the small jumper wire. Just strip both ends and plug them in the proper slots.

For safety, I put the jumper cables on the battery leads and then wrapped them really good with electrical tape. The amount of electrical tape I used was probably overkill but it made me feel safer. Then I set the battery off to the side and connected the other end to them when I was ready to pump. Despite what the book says, the key did not need to be on for the fuel pump to work with the jumper bypass.

B-ran

Thank you Slakker for the awesome advice! I'll let you know how it goes for me!

Slakker

I just double checked my jumper and #12 is probably too heavy. 14 or even 16 gauge should work a little better.

johnireland

You shouldn't run your car so empty that the low fuel light comes on. I believe the owner's manual warns against this as well. In this case...bad gas became very bad since it was deluted with almost zero gas. I've had a couple of cases over the years where putting gas in my cars have given me rough idle and issues like you describe...but not as severe. In those cases I added octane booster and drove the gas out of the car, topping up constantly to put good gas back in.