My dad owns a hotel and advertises a hotel room for the price of the year of your car, '73 and older.... So theres a regular guy that comes up from a few hundred miles away often and drives his 31? model A... Hotel room for $31..... Anyway early this morning he called me with a problem... The guy had been driving it and it just stopped, Thought it was getting no fire... I keep spare parts around and took a coil, Dizzy, straps, etc... Replaced coil, (coil on it was wet). Still didnt start so I took off the air filter (weber down draft) and pressed the accelerator linkage to assure it had some gas all to get a surprise... The "gas" stuck in bubbles around the carb... WATER... I asked him where he had just been... Driving back from gas station from filling up and thats when it quit... Dismantled electric fuel pump/ filter and drained out all 11 gallons.... At least 7 gallons of water... Cleaned everything, new GOOD gas in, ran great.... Called the gas station to let them know... They didnt care... So I will be sending them a Bill for the work shortly...
Stick to your guns for all of us on this one. Gas stations whose tank maintenance procedures are so lax that we get stuff like this deserve to get a kick in the nuts!!!!!!!!! Please, keep us posted.
I would contact a lawyer. About 5 years ago when me and my wife were new to the area we used a small mom and pop gas station to fill her nearly new car and it was mostly water and did some damage. Us along with several other people lawyered up and the station paid our repairs and couldn't sell gas until the tank and pumps were properly repaired and maintained. Posted using the Full Custom H.A.M.B. App!
The government agency in your state that inspects gas station pumps [such agencies are also usually concerned with fuel quality] would be good to contact but it would be best if the victim made the first contact ; you are a witness .
since the guy with the Model A is from out of town it may be a tough battle to make. hopefully a soon as you guys figured out the problem he went back to the station to complain. by waiting any length of time the station will likely resolve their problem or just stop using bad tank. it is the owner of the station that has to be delt with. filing a formal complaint with government agencies is good. but, getting a lawyer is going to cost more than repairs. up to guy with Model A.
And that's what you get out of pump gas!!! I race offroad motorcycles racing...desert racing and such living in Nevada. We spend big bucks for high octane race gas for our race engines and we purchased VP race gas before one race. We bought 10 gallons of the race gas.....and guess what. We ultimately blew up my race bike engine not know we got about 3 gallons of water out of each 5 gallon jug of gas. So 6 of the 10 gallons was water. Spent almost a hundred bucks on race gas and you get water in it. Think VP race gas manufacturer cared....no way. They took no responsibility and put blame on everybody else that was down the chain. The vp gas dealer we bought it from in Reno footed the $800 bill to rebuild my engine. We learn now that every time we buy race gas from VP, we test it for it's water content before I pay them for it. Yes, your talking about pump gas, but I'm just saying that even $9.00 a gallon race fuel can have water in it. Just beware of what you might get with regular old pump gas when you put it in your old hot rod.
Call weights and measure, those guys are pretty brutal on cheaters. There has been a lot of stories lately about watering gas because the corn stuff can absorb more of it. What a crock. Good luck Jack
yes ethanol can absorb up to 10% of water before it separates. and weights and measures is who you need to call. that station should have a tank monitor that will tell haw much water was in the tank and at what time. they are responsible. I work on this equipment for a living and it happens a lot .
When I was a teen and working at gas stations we would occasionally be visited by some State guys who would check our tanks with long poles to see how much water was in them. I would think things have progressed further than that by now and that there is some Governmental agency who would take your complaint and pay them a visit. Don
X2- I would think that it would be the state department of agriculture weights and measures dept. they usually inspect the gas octane as well.
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