Car with 2 year old gas, running rough..

[fleabag]

I forgot to mention that a few days ago I was in park revving the engine pretty hard (italian tuneup), holding it at 4000rpm for like 30seconds, then idling, and going back up to like 5500rpm and dropping, then holding 2K rpm for awhile. I did that for about five minutes and a bunch of water came out of the tail pipe, mostly on the left and a little on the right. I turned off the engine, then turned it on again and the check engine light went away. I then drove the car 3 days ago, check engine light never came back on and I found it ran a little better but when I hit high load situations, it began to vibrate pretty badly and I couldn't go up hills on the highway very well at all.

So today I drove the car with the new fuel filter in place, and I've found the car to vibrate and or stumble a lot less at idle than it used to, but once I put it in a high load situation such as in drive with the brake partially depressed and the car creeping forward, the car likes to shake pretty badly. Reving the engine to 900 rpm makes it shake, 1700rpm and that's about it, higher RPMs sound and feel fine. I had great difficulty in climbing hills today but I'm still happy as the engine and car does not vibrate as violently as it used to. Before filling up, I did an italian tune up at the gas station for about 5 minutes, a small puddle of water developed below the tail pipe, but nothing like from before. I think I'm on my 3rd tank of new gas, I fill up 3 gallons at a time, running on low. Oh and for those who think it's the fuel pump, the car has yet to die on me or even make me believe that it would die on me.

I'm starting to think the real issue is with the fuel injectors.

 

[LTC8K6]

Water from the tailpipe is always going to be there. This is normal. More than a pound of water vapor is produced for every pound of gasoline you burn.

HEET will allow any water in the tank to go through the system and be burned, and STA-BIL should help with deposits from old gasoline.

 

[dud]

Originally posted by: nakedfrog

Originally posted by: dud
You can syphon all the gas you want but if you have water in the line you'll still have problems. You should never let gas sit for too long (don't ask me how long "too" long is).

I believe conventional wisdom puts it at six months.

I am anything but conventional ... but thanks for the post, I learned something.

 

[dud]

Originally posted by: LTC8K6
Water from the tailpipe is always going to be there. This is normal. More than a pound of water vapor is produced for every pound of gasoline you burn.

HEET will allow any water in the tank to go through the system and be burned, and STA-BIL should help with deposits from old gasoline.

OP, try this before you do anything else. The poster's advice is good AND cheap.

 

[fleabag]

Originally posted by: dud

Originally posted by: LTC8K6
Water from the tailpipe is always going to be there. This is normal. More than a pound of water vapor is produced for every pound of gasoline you burn.

HEET will allow any water in the tank to go through the system and be burned, and STA-BIL should help with deposits from old gasoline.

OP, try this before you do anything else. The poster's advice is good AND cheap.

Well considering that water sinks to the bottom of the tank and about 2 gallons of gas came out of the tank as I was replacing the fuel filter, I'd doubt there'd be any water left in the tank..

 

[Buddy2013]

I have a 1996 Honda Accord that sat for 2 years without running. The gas tank was almost empty. I was able to start the car and it was running fine. I drove it to the gas station and filled the car with premimum gas. It continued to run fine. I shut it off, and tried starting it, and it started immediately.

24 hours later I tried starting the car, and it will crank but not start. Any Ideas????

Hello and welcome to AnandTech Forums. Prior to your post, this thread had not had a reply for over 5 and a half years. It is generally considered bad forum etiquette to post in a thread that has been inactive for that long.

More directly important to you is that replying to such an old thread with a new question is less likely to get you useful responses because your question will be buried within the responses to the thread and people will erroneously post replies to the first post in the thread instead of to your post.

The best course of action is to start a new thread for your question. That way you will be much more likely to get advice for your specific situation.

Zenmervolt - AnandTech Moderator

 

[mrblotto]

It lives!

 

[tortillasoup]

I've got a LS400 that I've had parked for about 2 years now b/c I didn't need to drive it until yesterday. Well first off it started pretty rough and then from then on, it likes to buck, vibrate and etc. under hard acceleration and when I have it in D, at a standstill and then have the brake partially depressed so that the car moves but is being slowed, but it does ok under very very light acceleration. I ended up getting a check engine light stating that I have an air fuel ratio lean malfunction. The tank was 3/4 filled before I started driving it yesterday and I'm wondering what could be causing this issue. The issue sort of gets better as the car warms up but otherwise cold vs. hot starts, the car runs the same.

The car ran perfectly fine before I stopped driving it about 2 years ago, I turned on the car I believe one year ago to see if everything is fine and keep it somewhat lubricated, didn't notice anything odd of the sort.

So I'm thinking it could be the following issues:

1. Bad/old Gas?

1. water in Gas?

1. something clogging air intake? (there were mice/rats inside of engine bay at one point)

1. fuel injector got dirty/broke?

Even better, it appears this car doesn't have a check engine light/code for missing/not working injector! Does 2 year old Premium gasoline really act this badly? Or is it just water? I dunno but I would like to hear your ideas!

I pulled the first code, 25 this morning before I ran the car, so that would mean that code was generated when the car was at running temperature. Just ran the car this morning for a short drive, turned it off and checked again, got two more codes, this time Code 24 and 26 as well.
Code 25:Air-fuel ratio lean malfunction


So when the car is started up, it's running rich, when it's at running temperature or under heavy load I suppose, it's running lean?

Check your plugs... If any moisture or condensation went down the the spark plug holes/tubes, that will/can cause a misfire. If you see rust or wet plug boots, dry everything off and scrape off all the rust so the grounds are clean and good for the spark plug. Check your electrical grounds, especially the main battery cable running from the body to the negative on the battery. All the points that negative cable connects to, disconnect, and scrub all the metal until it's shiny, don't scrape any paint.

Report back and let us know the results...

 

[tortillasoup]

I have a 1996 Honda Accord that sat for 2 years without running. The gas tank was almost empty. I was able to start the car and it was running fine. I drove it to the gas station and filled the car with premimum gas. It continued to run fine. I shut it off, and tried starting it, and it started immediately.

24 hours later I tried starting the car, and it will crank but not start. Any Ideas????

check out honda-tech.com, this a very VERY common issue and has absolutely nothing to do with the gasoline you put into your car. Just a very quick guess, loose/worn/bad main relay.

One thing you'll want to do, on those cars, first have key in off position, then turn the key to the position right before cranking where all the lights on the gauges turn on, can you hear something near the back of the car hum or the sound of a quiet electric motor??? What you're trying to listen for is the priming of the fuel pump. If you don't hear that, then it could be fuel pump relay or fuel pump has failed.

Anyway just check out honda-tech, do some searches for that exact issue.

Go to google, then type this in the search bar:
car will crank but not start site:http://honda-tech.com/honda-accord-1990-2002-2/

 

[RLGL]

Hey people these cars are smarter than you are , take it to a GOOD pro, not necessarily a dealer. I have fixed this stuff in the marine end for years. You need EYES, knowledge and EARS to figure this out. The basics are the same for both fields. The modifiers are different, marine does not have MAF among others, but we have catalyst.
BTY
We had variable valve timing and direct injection 15 years ago

 

[LTC8K6]

Hey people these cars are smarter than you are , take it to a GOOD pro, not necessarily a dealer. I have fixed this stuff in the marine end for years. You need EYES, knowledge and EARS to figure this out. The basics are the same for both fields. The modifiers are different, marine does not have MAF among others, but we have catalyst.
BTY
We had variable valve timing and direct injection 15 years ago

Cars had both a long time ago, too...

Alfa Romeo was the first manufacturer to use a variable valve timing system in production cars (US Patent 4,231,330).[5] The fuel injected models of the 1980 Alfa Romeo Spider 2000 had a mechanical VVT system. The system was engineered by Ing Giampaolo Garcea in the 1970s

The 1955 Mercedes-Benz 300SL, the first production sports car to use fuel injection, used direct injection. The Bosch fuel injectors were placed into the bores on the cylinder wall used by the spark plugs in other Mercedes-Benz six-cylinder engines (the spark plugs were relocated to the cylinder head).

In 1996 gasoline direct injection reappeared in the automotive market. Mitsubishi was the first with a GDI engine in the Japanese market with its Galant/Legnum's 4G93 1.8 L inline-four.[14][15] It was subsequently brought to Europe in 1997 in the Carisma,[16] although the engine was a failure due to high emissions and poor fuel efficiency.[17] It also developed the first six-cylinder GDI powerplant, the 6G74 3.5 L V6, in 1997.[18] Mitsubishi applied this technology widely, producing over one million GDI engines in four families by 2001.[19] Although in use for many years, on September 11, 2001 MMC claimed a trademark for the acronym 'GDI' (with an uppercase final "I").[20]