Possible water in fuel..

[navfam46]

Here in Southern Italy, some of the local gas stations, espcially those frequented by Americans will water down the fuel for the obvious money making advantage. Well, it seems like I may have gotten some of said fuel this weekend. We had just come from a week in Northern Italy (950 kms up and 950 back) with zero issue. come to the base Saturday, stop at the same station I always do but this time the full service guy comes over and pumps the gas for me on the self-serve island. Head to the base (5-6 minutes away), spend about 1-2 hours in side shopping, come out and leave to go home, as soon as we got outside the gate, horrible shudder begins, RPMs jumping all over, little to no power and check engine light comes on. Bring it back on base to the shop, they run their diagnostics and tell me its either "bad injector", "bad coil" or "faulty plug". They refuse to work on it for fear of voiding my warranty (~3200 miles on the clock) so tomorrow I am going to drive it about 35 miles to the nearest dealer for them to HOPEFULLY tell me what is wrong and repair it....

I said all the above to ask, am I safe to drive it or will I be doing irreperable damage to the engine? I know this is a hard question to ask without the code, more info, etc, but based on what they think is the issue....any of you experts thoughts?

TIA.

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[NotBudule]

I wouldn't drive it like that , if it's all over the place , maybe a slight miss but not what your describing, anyway to siphon out as much as possible and refill with some good stuff ? And maybe some fuel additives? (Dry gas and such)

 

[airline tech]

I would smell the gas , it appears they may have pumped diesel and I would tow it until you can confirm problem.
I highly suspect bad gas as it started just after fueling and it’s highly watered down or diesel

 

[navfam46]

Well, had to get it home to take it to ford tomorrow. Used my reader and throwing P0300,0302,0303, 0304 & 0305 error codes..

also, not diesel, I watched the one he used, it was the EU version of 91/92 octane..

we shall see what ford says tomorrow

 

[NotBudule]

Hopefully they can just drain and refill and maybe just replace the fuel filter ...

 

[navfam46]

Hopefully they can just drain and refill and maybe just replace the fuel filter ...

REALLLLLLY hopeful. When I drove home (about 12 miles) it started out super shuddery, and really only bogged down when going up hills or accelerating to get on the highway. I kept it about 50 mph the whole way home. The dealership is only about 1.5-2 miles from my house and I’m going to ease it over there as well.

fingers crossed!!

 

[Grandaccess]

sounds like bad gas or they put the wrong fuel in the wrong in ground tank?
I had something like that happen a few months back, here in the states we can get high grade 93 Non-Eth and additive called dry-gas and after a tank came back to normal
I hope you didnt pump Diesel you could blow a head gasket with high cyl pressure
here we have problems with Rats chewing wires and those issues can be really F***ING hard to nail down

 

[Justin says...]

I'm no scientist, but I think you can tell if it has water by putting a sample in a beaker, or glass, and the water should separate out from the gas. Might be interesting to see if it is indeed water in the gas.

 

[DukeCanBuildit]

I'm no scientist, but I think you can tell if it has water by putting a sample in a beaker, or glass, and the water should separate out from the gas. Might be interesting to see if it is indeed water in the gas.

But I thought Marine Biologists WERE scientists.

 

[airline tech]

I'm no scientist, but I think you can tell if it has water by putting a sample in a beaker, or glass, and the water should separate out from the gas. Might be interesting to see if it is indeed water in the gas.

Yes - the fuel will float above the water, a small amount of water is acceptable- so this means that the water will settle to the fuel pump pickup -aircraft have sump valves for that specific purpose - samples , checking for water in the fuel

 

[airline tech]

Out of curiosity how low did the fuel level get before you got gas?

There could be a coincidental factor here and not actually water in the gas.
Fuel Pump, EGR System or EVAP system

If you pushed it and had the tank near empty, the Fuel Pump may have been overheated and is now putting out a weak pressure.

EVAP Purge Valve - Stuck Open
EGR Valve - Stuck Open

With no other codes other than Misfire Codes, I am leaning towards bad gas or bad fuel pump.
and with code P0305, I am assuming you have something other than the 2.3 Engine.

 

[navfam46]

Out of curiosity how low did the fuel level get before you got gas?

There could be a coincidental factor here and not actually water in the gas.
Fuel Pump, EGR System or EVAP system

If you pushed it and had the tank near empty, the Fuel Pump may have been overheated and is now putting out a weak pressure.

EVAP Purge Valve - Stuck Open
EGR Valve - Stuck Open

With no other codes other than Misfire Codes, I am leaning towards bad gas or bad fuel pump.
and with code P0305, I am assuming you have something other than the 2.3 Engine.

That’s what I was telling my wife, that code is for Cylinder 5 and all I have is the little 4-banger.

and regarding the gas, when I filled up, I was just over half a tank…wanted to top up for the upcoming work week.

 

[Ranger Lariat]

“Here in Southern Italy, some of the local gas stations, espcially those frequented by Americans will water down the fuel for the obvious money making advantage.”

Well, yet another reason not to visit “Italy”.

 

[Montana Ranger]

Whoa. Typically when this sort of thing happens stateside, (misfueling) it entitles you to a new engine. No idea how this plays out in Italy.

 

[navfam46]

Update: Local ford dealership (Italian) are claiming it was “excessive oil in the engine”…

It’s got 3000 miles and I’ve only added gas and washer fluid since I’ve owned it…

something tells me I’m not done with whatever this issue is…FML

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