Ok I got a bad tank of gas. The triple AAA guy was great, went and got a different truck that could siphon out the bad gas, and brought me two gallons to get the car started again. My question is- how does the car's computer deal with this? Will it just assume it was a hiccup? or will it do weird stuff for the next few hundred miles? By the way, the people at Mini would only flatbed the car 50 miles to New County. Hardly helpful.

 

what do you mean by bad? what happened? did you put diesel in the tank?

 

Depending on what was in the "bad" gas, you could have some serious problems with the fuel injection system. Be sure to keep the receipt from the gas station where you bought the bad gas. They should have insurance to cover this kind of situation. Also, check with your auto insurance agent for coverage under the Comprehensive section of your auto insurance policy.

 

I used to work for an insurance company that specialized in commercial vehicles. One of the policies we sold was for cargo-and we sold to tankers. I remember a claim where diesel got put into the wrong tank at a station and the claims came pouring in- luckily none of the cars needed anything beyond a tank siphon and maybe one or two injectors-there was about 80 cars effected. There were two cars that got one new injector each-they were both pretty old so age probably had more to due with that issue than the gas but it wasn't worth arguing over. Hopfully you'll have good luck with this!

 

Good luck. My hubby got a tank of bad gas (water) in his sportbike, caused the fuel pump to go out and the station that we bought it from took no responsibility ended up costing us over $500.

 

You could file a claim in Small Claims court.

 

I think I got some bad gas yesterday at a shell. My gas is all messed up and dose not stay on.

 

Right about now is when stations acrosst the US are switching to "summer gas", which in addition to raising gas prices, has been known to immobilize MINIs and other "high compression" engines! A search for "summer gas" on NAM will bring up a series of threads similar to this one. And no, as far as I know, the oil companies still aren't owning up to it. Dealers blame the oil companies, oil companies blame the manufacturers, consumers are left in the middle, despite hundreds of accounts with nearly identical symptoms.

Wish I had more to offer than this. :(

 

Do you know how to siphon gas?

 

alcohol content in the fuel, or poor additive mixture. BMW says that 10% ethanol is the limit that Minis and BMWs should run on. any more can play havoc with driveability issues and no start conditions and stalling. YOU CAN CHECK FUEL AT HOME. go to the local BMW parts counter and ask for part # 83 30 0 420 667. this is a fuel/alcohol tester that costs 15$. anyone interested in this P.M. me and ill explain how to use it ( easy but alot to type ) if noone wants to find out how, id rather not type it and save myself the time. anyone who is interested however id be happy to explain it.