Mystery Fuel Contamination

[7394]

If you are buying E-10 by 20 gallon quantity, You must be a commercial cutter.

That ethanol can turn pretty quickly, called phase separation. It actually attracts moisture.

If you have somewhere that sells 100% real gas, that is the ticket. I won't use anything else in my mow stuff.

 

[bertsmobile1]

I'm doubtful warranty will cover it since there was no defect in Scag material or workmanship. But, we can hope.

Meanwhile, I guess I'll go buy plastic cans....but the metal cans are made for gas. Holding gas is their sole purpose....hard to believe they are the problem. I also find it hard to believe gas from the gas station was that full of crap. 13 years of filling gas cans and mowers and this has never happened....only now with a brand new mower and premium metal cans with spring lids and tight seals.

But the issues with ethanol or other types of gas I know nothing about. I'm going to check my other cans to see if they are contaminated. I'm not sure what to do with 20 gallons of gas I can't use.

Tip it out into a tallish container and have a look.
The phase seperations is exactly that.
Good gas on the top crap underneath so you can tip out the good stuff.
It is a luck of the draw situation but I would be having a chat with the gas station owner.
A truck driver skimming gas off and replacing it with water is not unheard of.
In 40,000 gallons. 500 gallons of water will go unnoticed.
There should be a water trap in the pump and his might be faulty or just plain full cause the attendant is too lazy to clean it weekly.

 

[cashman]

Six months ago I filled up in my "08 F-150 at a Shell station where I've bought gas for years with no problem. Drove about a mile and the check engine light came on. Checked to see if the gas cap was on tight and it was. The engine seemed to run OK but the light stayed on and I got one of my buddies that runs an auto repair business to see what trouble code was showing. The code showed a lean mixture of the fuel. He said it was probably bad gas as he had seen this many times. They dropped the tank and the gas inside was cloudy like you guys where saying. I got a clear plastic food container and skimmed some of the gas in it and carried it back to the station where I bought. I had a copy of my receipt with a copy of the repair bill ($185). Left it all there and about a month later, I received a check from the gas distributor that owned the pumps at the station not only covering the repair bill, but for the tank of gas also and apologizing for the inconvenience. They said under certain conditions that the fuel could get contaminated due to ground temperature and transport pipeline conditions as well as underground storage tank conditions. I was surprised at my good fortune with them paying for all the repairs.

 

[55TBird]

If you are buying E-10 by 20 gallon quantity, You must be a commercial cutter.

That ethanol can turn pretty quickly, called phase separation. It actually attracts moisture.

If you have somewhere that sells 100% real gas, that is the ticket. I won't use anything else in my mow stuff.

I'm not sure if it is E10 or not. I'll have to check.
Not a commercial cutter though. My Turf Tiger has a 12-gallon tank so I like to fill about four 5-gallon cans when I go to the gas station so I have gas on hand to keep mowing.
When I have taken my mower somewhere else to mow, like my daughter's place, I have stopped at a gas station and filled the tanks directly from the pump...do I need to rethink that practice?

Anyway, I'm going to check the remaining cans that were all filled at the same time, and see if I can figure out more.

 

[55TBird]

Six months ago I filled up in my "08 F-150 at a Shell station where I've bought gas for years with no problem. Drove about a mile and the check engine light came on. Checked to see if the gas cap was on tight and it was. The engine seemed to run OK but the light stayed on and I got one of my buddies that runs an auto repair business to see what trouble code was showing. The code showed a lean mixture of the fuel. He said it was probably bad gas as he had seen this many times. They dropped the tank and the gas inside was cloudy like you guys where saying. I got a clear plastic food container and skimmed some of the gas in it and carried it back to the station where I bought. I had a copy of my receipt with a copy of the repair bill ($185). Left it all there and about a month later, I received a check from the gas distributor that owned the pumps at the station not only covering the repair bill, but for the tank of gas also and apologizing for the inconvenience. They said under certain conditions that the fuel could get contaminated due to ground temperature and transport pipeline conditions as well as underground storage tank conditions. I was surprised at my good fortune with them paying for all the repairs.

Well, that is good to know. So far my opinion is that the problem originated at the gas station tanks...not my fuel cans or not from sitting too long in the can.

 

[7394]

I'm not sure if it is E10 or not. I'll have to check.

Anyway, I'm going to check the remaining cans that were all filled at the same time, and see if I can figure out more.

Unless your gas is clearly specified as something else, we have to think it is Ethanol Blend aka E-10 (Corn-gas).

I would take a sample can with the crud in it & your reciept to that station & speak to the manager.

 

[jekjr]

We see this debate on a daily basis some where concerning the E-10 gas.

We have three Scag Tiger Cats with Kawasaki engines, 5 Echo Seedeaters, several other pieces of equipment as well.

FROM MY EXPERIENCE your problems are not from the E-10 gas but rather they are from letting the gas sit for long periods of time.
I have tried using the non ethanol gas. I have tried using the higher octane fuels. I have found that running regular E-10 which is the most readily available gives me the best results because it is first of all so readily available. Second because the turn over at the stations is so much larger that it stays fresher.

I try to purchase gas at only one of three places. Again because they turn over large quantities of gas and theirs has not been sitting in the ground for extended periods of time. Since we have been doing this we have experienced little to no fuel related issues.

While trying to keep Non- Ethanol gas I find that many times the gas is not pumped in the volume that the regular gas is and therefore it has caused me more problems than regular E-10 gas has.

We normally mix 5 gallons of 2 cycle mix gas a week and at times more.

We normally keep 2 five gallon cans of regular gas on the trailer and will most times fill the cans and the mowers at the pump and then refill the mowers out of the cans and then refill both the mowers and the cans at the same time again.........

 

[55TBird]

We see this debate on a daily basis some where concerning the E-10 gas.

We have three Scag Tiger Cats with Kawasaki engines, 5 Echo Seedeaters, several other pieces of equipment as well.

FROM MY EXPERIENCE your problems are not from the E-10 gas but rather they are from letting the gas sit for long periods of time.
I have tried using the non ethanol gas. I have tried using the higher octane fuels. I have found that running regular E-10 which is the most readily available gives me the best results because it is first of all so readily available. Second because the turn over at the stations is so much larger that it stays fresher.

I try to purchase gas at only one of three places. Again because they turn over large quantities of gas and theirs has not been sitting in the ground for extended periods of time. Since we have been doing this we have experienced little to no fuel related issues.

While trying to keep Non- Ethanol gas I find that many times the gas is not pumped in the volume that the regular gas is and therefore it has caused me more problems than regular E-10 gas has.

We normally mix 5 gallons of 2 cycle mix gas a week and at times more.

We normally keep 2 five gallon cans of regular gas on the trailer and will most times fill the cans and the mowers at the pump and then refill the mowers out of the cans and then refill both the mowers and the cans at the same time again.........

Regarding gas sitting for a long time — on my end, I filled the cans, immediately filled the mower and I think it took a week to feel the first sputter. The next week it died, so it took about 3 or 4 hours of mowing to totally clog the fuel filter.
As for the gas sitting in the gas stations tanks...that would be hard to know. But I live in a small county where there are 5 gas station total. (And 3 traffic lights). I buy gas from the busiest station — BP. But as I understand it, all of the gas in our region comes from the same Marathon distributor....they seem to have a monopoly which becomes a problem when gas prices rise. We tend to pay a lot more for gas that surrounding states.

What puzzles me is that I have been mowing my place for 13 years and buying gas mostly from the same place and this has never happened. That's why I question the theories about E-10 or old gas in general. If it were a common explanation, it seems like this would happen more often. I'm really tempted to take this stuff and have it analyzed and see what it is.

 

[bertsmobile1]

Depends upon what is in the blend.
Down here we do not have any regulations as to what has to in fuel, just limits of what can not be in it.
Some days I would swear I am pumping 100% Toluene and a week latter is smells more like pure benzene.
I have assumes that the fuel companies scour the planet for combustable hydrocarbon by products that are cheap on the spot market then bring them in and try to blend something which might burn.

 

[55TBird]

What would have happened if I had fuel injection? Those injector nozzles have almost microscopic holes to atomize the fuel. And they aren't cheap.
I bought the 35 hp Briggs Vanguard engine because HP was more important than fuel economy to me and I'm leery about complexity in a mower. I figured that there is less to go wrong with a carb.
And yet....