Jackelope

Last week, I was "playing" with a friend on the way to lunch, went around a sharp curve (40ish), as i exited the curve, my car "died out" - no power whatsoever for a second or 2... i thought... ok? wth? - thought maybe that was just a fluke... fast forward to this morning... i accelerated hard from a start (no spinning, just pretty much rolled forward and floored it, "died out" again for a second or 2... then went...

both times this happened i was low on gas, not enough for the light to come on, but ~ 1/8 tank. (the light did flicker on once on the way to work this morning)

think it could be the gas? 1st(& 2nd time) its done this since i bought the car.

kargoboy

Could be. But you know, driving like a maniac will stir up all the debris at the bottom of your tank.
With the tank being low, anything in there will certainly get to your injectors faster than with a full tank.

Jackelope

me? drive like a maniac... surely not... (dont scroll up!)

i'm filling up the tank today @ lunch, see what happens.

surfing_in_my_room

The exact same thing happened to my girlfriend's camaro. She suspected bad gas but I took a look and it turns out her fuel pump was dying. I replaced it and the problem went away. Depending on how old your car is/ how many miles it could be a number of things. It could very well be bad gas, but then again one of your spark plugs could be misfiring, your distributor could be malfunctioning, or one or more of your injectors may be clogged. Also check your fuel line for leakage. Let us now what turns up... hope that helped.

meGrimlock

good question, my friend never lets his gas tank get empty because he says the sediments on the bottom of the tank are bad for the car or something. is the alternative to leave the sediments in the tank and keep filling up? do any of those "fuel cleaner" additives actually work? the manual says not to use them.

surfing_in_my_room

That's an interesting theory, but if you think about it, any sediment or impurities in the fuel that settle to the bottom will be resuspended once the car starts moving. Accelerating, braking, turning, etc. tends to make the fuel in the tank slosh around a bit. It may be true that when you're near empty, you are running off of fuel with a higher ppm of impurities, but that should not directly effect driveability of the vehicle. All it means is that your fuel filter is straining out slightly more garbage when you're nearly empty.

By principle, fuel cleaner's should work. Whether they are truly effective or not I'm not sure about. They help to clean the crap that builds up in the injectors, and also what builds up around the valves. I'm guessing it works by degrading it chemically. So, there might be a chance that it could actually degrade your gaskets/seals as well. Does anyone know? I used it once or twice since I bought my protege and had an intake gasket go around 80,000. Any correlation?

Jackelope

it's only did it 2x... and i filled up, no funny business while driving around @ lunch... and its got 75k on the car. i figured i would get sometype of cel if something *major* was wrong...

surfing_in_my_room

not necessarily, i never got a check engine light when my intake gasket blew. I'd consider that major, but no CEL. All of a sudden my car started idling irradically.

Jackelope

i'll try to look some stuff over on Saturday...

zerocover

I noticed the car acts diffrently when the tank gets low. Smoother somewhat. It wouldn't be gas at the bottom of the tank, wouln't it be at the top.

Perhaps not sediment water. A bottle of fuel injector cleaner usually reacts with the water somewhat to help clean it out.

Anyone have any expirences with sea foam? I know it can be used on the intake directly. But as far as a fuel injecor cleaner, I dont know how well it might work.

KrayzieFox

I have to say that my car doesn't seem to run near as smooth when the tank's really low. I always fill up when the light comes on, but I think I might stop doing that now. The only thing I ever notice is that is just doesn't seem as responsive, but it never bogged out on me ...

Jackelope

well, it hasnt did it again since i filled up.

Foxxxy

Marcus here- when low on gas in hard cornering- you could be pushing the gas inside the tank away from the fuel pump- I used to have this problem with the Pro when autox'in it. I tried running the whole event the first time with about an 1/8th of a tank and ended up having the fuel cutout like that in some of the sharper turns and as the day went on it continued.- Just an observation I have made- Now I dont run below 1/4 tank in the Pro anywhere...

Jackelope

^ i think that is the problem.. i have had zero problems since fill'n up