V70R lost power, engine died - bad gas?

Post by **jmailloux** » 28 Apr 2013, 11:30

Never has happened before: My 1998 V70R (170k) lost engine power, and the engine died several times while driving back from Mammoth Lakes to San Diego. Engine would sputter, sometimes recover, then die completely. No check engine lights, nothing wrong under the hood I could find. Gas tank was down to about 3 - 4 gallons. Each time car died, we would pull over, park, wait a moment, and then car would start fine. Drive another 5 - 10 mintues, repeat. I got to a gas station finally, filled it with premium. Car died one more time about 5 minutes after filling. I drove to a truck stop, bought some fuel system cleaner that claimed it would take water out as well. Never had another occurrence on that trip or since (a couple of weeks now). Changed the fuel filter with a Bosch filter this year, spark plugs/wires/distributor/etc all relatively new. New fuel boost pump a couple of years ago. Car runs great otherwise.

I really do not want my family and I possibly stranded on that kind of trip in the future.

Anything I should be looking at or checking, or just put it down to bad fuel, either water or other contamination?

Thanks,
Jim.

Post by **matthew1** » 28 Apr 2013, 11:42

I think you answered your own question. My only $.02 is that you were at 3-4 gallons left when this occurred. Usually it's <1 gallon when the (normal) water and sludge from bad fuel starts getting sucked from the bottom of your gas tank into the fuel system and that sputter/die/repeat scenario happens. Or you might have bought gasoline from a station which itself was pumping its last gallons from the underground tank, so you'd have over a gallon of junk at the bottom of your tank

... simply put... bad gas. Lots of it.

Post by **abscate** » 28 Apr 2013, 19:40

It also could be a faulty fuel pup relay. Read up on how to bypass this so you can be ready to try this next time it fails.

Post by **jmailloux** » 28 Apr 2013, 20:30

Thanks for the sanity check, Matthew1.

I will also read up on the fuel pump relay. Maybe I'll just replace the silly thing with new if it is a possible failure point.....15 years is enough.

Thanks,
Jim.

Post by **rmmagow** » 29 Apr 2013, 11:18

Go on ebay, buy a couple of the relays and keep them in the GC after testing them. Do you feel it might be worth draining and cleaning the tank a little? Maybe change the fuel filter again in case it got badly contaminated.