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Warranty expired yesterday...

Crazyfrog

Active Member
Broke down today! Well sort of. Went for a nice ride with the Mrs. tonight, and since she doesnt like the highway to much, I decided to take some city streets up through town, which meant a lot of stop and go and low rpms. Stopped for gas at a Shell station, filled up with premium, and about 3-4 miles later it started cutting out terrible. Played the throttle and worked through it, had an enourmous backfire, and away we went. Did this about 10 - 12 more times in the 6 -8 miles home, mostly at low to mid rpm's.

Now, I know this has all the sympoms of bad gas. So, should I drain it imediatly and go get a new filter, or try some seafoam and see what happens?
Is there really any way to tell if the gas is bad or not? Is it water or dirt?

The engine light never came on and there are no codes. Other than that, she is put away for the night and I'll deal with it in the morning.

Oh, the other details are:
08 ultra
Had the fuel filter changed during recall. (I know these are really the same symptoms as the faulty one)
Big sucker, V&H fuel pack, true duels.
9100 miles.
 
Sea foam surely could not hurt here, Good Luck, lots `of bad gas out there
 
Sounds like a tank full of bad fuel.

No amount of snake oil is going to change it into good fuel.

Depending on what the fuel is contaminated with, it could be very unhealthy for the o2 sensors etc.

If it were my motorcylce, I would siphon out the tank and re-fill with fresh fuel before running it again.
 
As FLH said, you can use the fuel to run in your lawn mower, would not want to run it in the bike. JMO...
 
well that's no good...can you mention what station you used? Shell, Exxon, or generic..guy's I used to ride w/ would pull up to any gas station and gas up when the urge struck. I always preferred to hit a brand type station when I could.

There was a guy on the AM 550 station in Cincinnati (just down the road from you) who did an automotive session on Saturdays. He commented once that all the EPA statistics, MPG statistics, etc that car manufacturers define for the vehicles they sell, were all done based on Chevron gas. And as such he was a Chevron fan. I haven't researched that, so take it fwiw. I know there's not much difference between name brands as to quality, but when the boys in the group would pull into a gas-station that had an outhouse for the head - I always wondered just exactly what I was putting in my scoot -
 
Crazyfrog; yes, you probably filled at a station where their supply tank was getting low & took a bit of bad fuel. Definitely drain and, if bad enough, might want to change the filter again - if it still acts up. Good Luck!
 
and you can scratch my question on which station you used - had I "really" read your post..I would have seen that word Shell in there... think I need to take up drinking coffee -
 
OK, I got an early start on this today. I went and got a can of Sea Foam, put it in and waited about an hour, then proceeded to siphon the gas out. I figure I got it down to less than a gallon. Headed to the gas station and put another gallon in, and went for a short ride. It has not coughed once!
Should I be so Lucky???

I sure hope so, but I doubt it.

The air temp is quite a bit cooler this morning and I was out on mostly open roads for about 15 miles total. Not the same as all the in traffic stop and go that I had last night, where as the bike was plenty warm.

I cant devote any more time to it today, so we will have to wait and see.

Thanks for all the input.
 
This will undoubtably get a real howl from some, but last summer I was on a group ride that went late into the night. We pulled into a Shell station and one of my buddies pulled up to the first pump and filled up. As we started out my buddies bike (93FXSTC) started missing and backfiring. It started to run better when we hit about 65MPH. As we neared the next town and slowed down it was missing and backfiring bad. We stopped and changed plugs but it still did not want to run right. Long story short he had filled up with disel fuel.
 
Some things I have learned over the years:
It is best to fill up at a station that sells lots and lots of gas, all the time.
It is easy to fall into the trap of gasoline marketing ads.
Just because the gasoline brand costs more, does not mean it is better.
Ethanol gasoline has fewer BTUs than non ethanol gasoline.
Octane is an elusive thing. It has the effect of slowing down the burning.
You might have just as good of results with 87 octane as you think you do with 93. Try it and see.
Harley Davidson motorcycles do not require "Special, secret, skunks works gasoline" just because they can cost north of 30 grand.
All underground gasoline tanks have water and impurites in them. It is normal. The pickups are elevated up above the bottom of the tank so you don't suck in impurities. Try not fillup when the tanker is there dumping fuel into the underground tank as he will "stir up" any impurities in the tank which are likely to be dispensed by the pump.
All gasoline pumps should have fuel filters on them so the likelyhood of picking up trash is minimized...but not absolute.
If you drive enough, sooner or later you will get some "less than perfect fuel".
Drain it out, fill up with 'good gas", pour in a cup of Seafoam. laugh and go on, cause life is too short to be worrying about bad gas all the time.
 
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