Anybody heard of $1900 repair bill for "bad gas"?

I had a friend put approx 10 gallons diesel in a '97 F-150 3.8L... Was Sat night, no mechanical service available, or place to stay and was approx 300 miles from home(mountains of MD headed for OH)... Called me all in a tizzy asking what to do, said it ran but knocked badly under any load... I told him to finish filling it with premium, drive it easy and do not let it knock if possible, use 2nd uphill if necessary... He called me a couple hours later and had made around 90 miles... At that point he added more premium and said he could run it at 55 out of O/D(roads were leveling out)... He add fuel again in another 100 mi, said it did OK as long as his foot was light... I crossed my fingers it wouldn't have issues in the future but no ill resulted...

 

You're talking about a Ford they'll run on anything, I work on Toyotas. Toyota's wont run with diesel in them (most import cars too) , the diesel fouls the plugs in them. Most of the time it's a pruis owner who does this, guess they think they're priesels.

 

'Sounds like B.S. to Me. I'd say the 295,000 miles is more likely the problem.

 

Except the engine runs fine if I keep it above 1500 rpms. Well, a little rough, but I drove it about 5 miles before i had to stop at a red light and let it stall.

 

Well, Bayshore Dodge just called, they said all this work is "Chrysler recommended service" for water in gas. They refuse to just drain tank and try new gas. They will do ALL the listed maintenance, or I can pick it up and take it somewhere else.

They agree that most likely fresh gas will fix the problem, but they will not do it for me. I am still convinced it is a sensor issue, and not the gas. So I will tow it to another shop who agrees that fresh gas will most likely fix it, and if it doesn't they will fix or replace only what NEEDs to be fixed.

 

Too bad someone didn't have a fuel oil furnace in their house.

 

'Sounds like a good choice to me. They're not interested in helping you get your truck back on the road; all they care about is making as much money as they can.

 

On the way out of the dealer, one of the salesmen asked me how things were going, and I told him all about this. He agreed that his own service department is just trying to make as much money off me as possible.

 

Well, just for the hell of it, I bought a half gallon of E-85 just to compare it to what was in my tank, and lo and behold...it wasn't E-85.

E-85 in left bottle, stuff from my tank in right bottle.

FYI--tank is drained, topped off with Chevron Unleaded with a dose each of lucas injector cleaner, STP injector cleaner, and STP Ethanol treatment. It was hesitating a bit on takeoff, but after driving off a half tank of this solution, it is running flawlessly now.

 

Me wondering, compare the smell of the ethanol to your gas sample, they could have dumped E85 in the wrong storage tank at the station. That would give you the symptoms you mentioned and also produce that color due to the cleaning effect of ethanol. It's a great cleaner and is the main ingredient in most of the snake oil treatments on the market. You could also test each sample to see how much ethanol they contain but that's a little more difficult.

 

It's hard to judge the appearance of how E85 looks in comparison to E10, as those vary by vendor because of different additive packages...

Glad to hear it's OK again, whatever you pumped into the tank was no doubt contaminated with something...

 

Both should appear clear unless it's dyed for farm or marine use.

 

Just shows what scammers are running that dealership.

 

Your truck is speed denisity based (MAP sensor) not mass air flow for starters. Not sure how you changed that part?
Contaminated fuel is contaminated fuel. Drop the tank too inspect and drain completely. (3hours)Never know what is in the tank. Sand,dirt,gravel,toys, you name it. Yep toys. Weve seen lego etc half melted in a tank!!
System is returnless. So its all (bad fuel) trapped in the fuel rail now. Pull rail and injectors. (1.5hours) Plugs are a Hemi tune up. (assuming its a hemi) That can hit $300 with 16 plugs. Throttle body is likely filthy so it needs to be cleaned anyhow. Just a bit of an extra labor grab there but likely needed anyhow.
Dont run the pump to drain it. Pumps are expensive if you damage it. If the tech does bare minimum to get it just running (drain tank) its gonna come back with misfires, maybe injector damage, catalytic efficiency codes etc etc. Then the customers tune changes and they want it fixed no charge. ITs a no win business same as most. Im thinking around $1000. If it had diesel like the one beside me right now then youve got a big problem. Better buy new Cats. 02 sensors etc. Makes a hell of a mess cause most people will drive it till it wont move. IF you have a mix of diesel and gasoline its dangerous even to drain it. That fuel tank is a big bomb if the mix is just right. Things arent as straight forward as people think. Find a good shop you trust with a good tech. Google techs and naysayers arent gonna help you much.

 

Honestly, I would have agreed to $1000 if they recommended all that work, just to be safe. But not $1900 for that work. I even talked to another dodge dealer on the other side of town who agreed that that work was worth 900-1000, not 1900. And he used to work for THIS dodge dealer!

The guy that ended up doing the work tested the fuel pump, looked at spark plugs ("no problem, they look brand new") and looked at the throttle body ("looks like someone just cleaned it").

I did all of that just a couple months ago. And new fuel pump two years ago. And cleaned out the fuel tank when I swapped the pump.

The only reason I took this to the shop was because I was far from home when it died, and I found it hard to believe it could be just bad gas and assumed it was electrical. Since no codes were coming up, I had no guidance of where to start looking.