Dealership discovered lots of oil and gunk in the gasoline in my G70. WHAAT?

[G-347324]

Last week I had my 2019 G70 towed because it was acting like it was running out of gas when it wasn't. Had 1/2 tank. The dealership found oil in the gasoline. How could this happen? I didn't add it. Did it happen at the gas pump? Vandalism unlikely. Huge amount of damage. Has anone encountered this in the past? Extensive damage. Insurance company will check it out and I might well file a claim. Any theories?

 

[dequardo50]

Have any enemies close by?

 

[BadTrainDriver]

Gas door is locked and released from inside the car. Was is damaged?

There really is no way for oil to get in your gas tank without it being vandalism.

Now gas in the oil is very possible. Are you sure it wasn't that?

 

[EdP]

Last week I had my 2019 G70 towed because it was acting like it was running out of gas when it wasn't. Had 1/2 tank. The dealership found oil in the gasoline. How could this happen? I didn't add it. Did it happen at the gas pump? Vandalism unlikely. Huge amount of damage. Has anone encountered this in the past? Extensive damage. Insurance company will check it out and I might well file a claim. Any theories?

How long since you filled up? Others using that station have a problem? A station not far from me had a dozen cars get contaminated with water. I also know of a case many years ago where fuel oil was put into a gas tank and contaminated some cars and trucks.

Seems odd if you went through a half tank unless it is minimal until it accumulated in the filter.

 

[Purple Ray]

Thanks for your responses. Would have answered your responses sooner but I got locked out of my account somehow. Or maybe I was posting as a guest and didn't have the authorization to reply. Whatever.... here we go:

To BadTrainDriver -- Definitely oil in gas (they think diesel and asked if I had ever put in diesel. No!).

To see if others had this issue I posted on the on-line neighborhood community forum and found no one in the neighborhood has had issues... at least none significant, and not at my station. I considered the possibility that the tanker truck did a bit of contaminating. That is, if it carried diesel as well as gas.

I do think the oil accumulated in the car somewhere, but why was it plentiful enough to cause $4500 in damages? Maybe the car wasn't built properly? It had 19,000 miles on it, so I would think issues would have shown up earlier than last month. But I have no idea.

Q: Do the filters in the car filter *oil* out? Or just debris? Should they have caught the oil?

Q: Could oil (motor oil?) have traveled from within the car? Maybe the theory the oil is diesel is incorrect. I'm really puzzled.

Q: When I get the car back, how will I know I can trust it ?

I ponder whether the car wasn't built properly...but I don't have a clue how I would prove that or how I would be reassured that the issue is resolved once the repairs are complete. I don't want to be trapped on a country road late at night if this recurs. ... or on a busy interstate far from home. The car was undriveable (lurching and bucking).

Thanks in advance for your insights!

Sincerely,
Purple Ray

 

[joegr]

...
Q: Do the filters in the car filter *oil* out? Or just debris? Should they have caught the oil? The

Q: Could oil (motor oil?) have traveled from within the car? Maybe the theory the oil is diesel is incorrect. I'm really puzzled.

Q: When I get the car back, how will I know I can trust it ?

...

No, the filter(s) can't filter out oil/diesel from gasoline. There is no expectation that they could ever do so.
No, there is no way for oil from the engine/transmission/anything else from the car to get into your gas tank. Whatever happened to you, came in through the fuel filler from outside.
Your car will be the same as any other gasoline car once correctly repaired. Like any other car, it would still have problems if contaminated gasoline was used or something bad was put in the gas tank.

 

[Purple Ray]

No, the filter(s) can't filter out oil/diesel from gasoline. There is no expectation that they could ever do so.
No, there is no way for oil from the engine/transmission/anything else from the car to get into your gas tank. Whatever happened to you, came in through the fuel filler from outside.
Your car will be the same as any other gasoline car once correctly repaired. Like any other car, it would still have problems if contaminated gasoline was used or something bad was put in the gas tank.

 

[5.0KDM]

are you the only 1 who drives it? Was it in at a shop for maintenance ?

 

[Purple Ray]

Thanks, joegr -- This lines up with what I'm thinking. It's hard to imagine the car being vandalized, but I do have an enemy. (I wrote a bad review of a cell phone repair company who broke my phone irreparably and refused to return it.) That said, my car is rarely unlocked, and I think it would have taken a lot of oil being added to cause so much damage. There are faster ways to vandalize a car. So that makes me wonder about my gas station. But no one else I could find had an issue with this station. I'm really puzzled!

 

[Purple Ray]

are you the only 1 who drives it? Was it in the shop?

Yes, only me. I drive it, I fill the tank. After the car showed serious symptoms... i.e. lurching repeatedly within 30 seconds of pulling out of the driveway, it was towed to a shop. Previous shop visit had been for routine maintenance at another dealership months earlier. I would hope contamination didn't happen there. (!)

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[5.0KDM]

It might have. Im pretty sure that gas pumps have separate tanks and pumps so it wont cross contaminate. Someone couldve had a bad day and passed it on to you. I would go to the shop and see if they have anybody quit or fired around the time this happened.

 

[Purple Ray]

It might have. Im pretty sure that gas pumps have separate tanks and pumps so it wont cross contaminate. Someone couldve had a bad day and passed it on to you. I would go to the shop and see if they have anybody quit or fired around the time this happened.

Really?? That's quite a stretch. Not to be argumentative here, but it was May when my car was at that shop.... even if a disgruntled or "having-a-bad-day" employee put a little bit of diesel in my car, could it take 5 months for the diesel to pass through the fuel system? And why would such diesel go into the fuel system when my tank was 1/2 full? As I understand it, the diesel would be at the very bottom of the tank, so if I were on empty I might discover it, but otherwise maybe not. At least this is what I'm surmising.

 

[joegr]

No, of course not. Gasoline is lighter than both diesel and oil. Any of either that got into your gas tank would be pretty quickly pumped into the engine, since it would be sitting in the bottom of the tank, where the fuel pickup is. I'm surprised that it took half a tank to happen (assuming that you filled up completely). Of course gas stations can and do sometimes get cross contaminated. It happens when the guy refilling the tanks at the station is careless and and starts pumping into the wrong tank.
Your case is really odd, since apparently no one else experienced problems with this. That's unlikely, but not impossible.

 

[5.0KDM]

I didn't realize it was that long but ya if it was 5 months ago it wouldn't have been the garage. Maybe it was the gas station.

 

[Trith72]

Wouldn't be the first time this could have happened, but usually it would hit more than a single vehicle. We had a gas station down here in Louisiana about 12 years ago that ruined nearly 50 vehicles before they caught it. The refinery pumped some kind of fuel oil mix into the wrong truck and it got delivered as mid grade unleaded to a Circle K. Was a heck of a series of lawsuits as well as the vehicle owners sued the gas station and the station sued the trucking company who in turn sued the refinery.

 

[Purple Ray]

Joegr, to clarify, I didn't ask if oil could leak into the gas tank. Rather, I was asking if something like, for example, a fuel injector seal, could leak oil into the gas as it's injected. Just trying to rule out all gaskets, seals, etc. along the way. I want to leave no stone unturned. "Your car will be the same as any other gasoline car once correctly repaired." What does correctly repaired mean?

 

[Purple Ray]

Q. 1 How much diesel had to be in the tank to create such a huge problem. Quarts? Gallons? This would help me figure out how long it would take for the car to be vandalized. Several minutes, at least. I still say there are lots of easier ways to damage a car. Like key it or something. Quick and dirty.

Q. 2 - And why the lag-time for the problem to arise? Service rep said it could have happened in the previous fill-up, not just the last.

Q. 3. I was getting gas at night. Midnight or so. Maybe tankers each had a small amt. of diesel in their gas and the diesel added up over time? (I'll be using a different station from now on I think.)

The clearer I can be about all this, the more confidence I'll have when my car is returned to me.

 

[joegr]

No, to oil leaking past an injector seal. (You have really serious problems if there is noticeable oil in the combustion chamber anyway.)
Q1: I would guess less than a pint.
Q2: Don't know.
Q3. Don't know.

 

[EdP]

Joegr, to clarify, I didn't ask if oil could leak into the gas tank. Rather, I was asking if something like, for example, a fuel injector seal, could leak oil into the gas as it's injected. Just trying to rule out all gaskets, seals, etc. along the way. I want to leave no stone unturned. "Your car will be the same as any other gasoline car once correctly repaired." What does correctly repaired mean?

If that was to happen, one cylinder would be infected and perhaps fouled plug. No way for it to push oil back to the tank with gas flowing up at a fairly high pressure.

Tanks at stations can and have been contaminated. Can't think of any other way. Given the cap cover is locked, that is unlikely, but not impossible.

 

[SuperKing]

Your fuel injectors are pressurized to thousands of PSI.... it would take the biggest fluke in the history of mankind for oil to go against that pressure, travel through the fuel lines and into the fuel tank.