HUNTSVILLE, Ala. — All eyes are on the rising price of gas at the pump, and for what it’s worth per gallon, the last thing you want is to have bad gas filling your tank.
A user on Reddit said they filled up at a gas station here in Huntsville and realized the gas was watered down when they started to experience some problems with their car.
THE QUESTION:
So we ask, can watered-down gasoline hurt your car?
THE SOURCES:
United Car Care Center, Regional Service Manager Jody Franklin
THE ANSWER:
Yes, watered-down gasoline can hurt your car. And it could do severe damage over time, especially if it’s filled consistently with watered-down gasoline.
WHAT WE FOUND:
“Number one, everybody knows water doesn’t burn. So it can damage fuel injectors, it can damage the internal workings of pistons, so in the end it can damage your engine internally,” said Franklin.
Franklin said watered-down gasoline could do severe damage over time, and repairs could be costly.
“It will involve in most cases removing the gas tank, cleaning it out, replacing the fuel filter, flushing out the fuel lines, running an injector cleaner into it. So it can run upwards in the $500-$600 dollars to correct the ones if it does get a lot of water in the gas. So it can be a quite an expensive repair.”
Here’s what you should spot if you happen to get watered-down gasoline:
“If you get water in the gas, you’re going to know it. It’s just going to start running rough. It’ll be a loss of power, the engine skipping and stuttering going down the road. Like I said, water doesn’t burn, so you’re going to know it if you get it.”
Franklin also explains how a pump may have watered-down gasoline:
“Majority of the time what causes it is if we have flooding in an area, and water gets into the tanks at the service stations. It gets in through ground water. So if you have an area that floods bad, then it can get into your tanks through that.”