possible bad tank of gas - what are my options?

I have a '95 dakota 5.2L V-8. 116k miles, one owner, all required and scheduled maintenance performed for the life of the vehicle.

I filled the tank on thursday, and on friday after driving about 5 miles and getting fully warmed up, it starts sputtering and acting like it wants to stall when accelerating or climbing. I'm going to take care of the next scheduled maintenance a bit sooner (new plugs, etc) but at this point I kind of suspect a bad tank of gas.

Other than driving it until the tank is empty and filling up someplace else next time, can I do anything else? I used to use gas line dryer ('heet' brand) years ago, but in my current location (Seattle) it rarely gets below freezing, although the last week or so has seen some record lows, well below freezing. I'm wondering if any of this stuff or a bottle of gas treatment might help.

I hope it's not something like the fuel filter or fuel pump, because they're located inside the gas tank on this particular vehicle. Not like my old buick where you could change the fuel filter with a flare nut wrench in 60 seconds.

Thanks,

Dave

Reply to
david.margrave
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I have a '93 Dakota that is my run-around truck. Your same symptoms happened to me about 9 months ago and I also accused the gas station of selling crap. It ran, barely, for about 3-4 days. Ran good for 5 minutes and then ran like crap for 5 minutes. I finally troubleshooted it and I had very little fuel pump pressure. A new pump cured it.

Troubleshoot it and then accuse the station of bad gas.

Reply to
Kruse

try some gas line antifreeze first, if that doesn't fix it, then check the fuel pump pressure. They may have sold you some bad gas, some with ice in it.

Reply to
hubcit

I had the same sort of problems with an external fuel pump and filter

-- Putting a fuel pressure gauge in-line revealed the pressure dropping off before the symptoms occurred -- Trouble turned out to be the sock filter on the in-tank pickup tube.

I was able to see the problem building up and blow the filter temporarily clean until I used up the fuel, then dropped the tank, cleaned it out and replaced the hardware.

If you can shut it down for a few minutes and then start it up OK for a short while, it's likely an obstruction in the fuel system, not the fuel.

We can still blame the fuel, but we can no longer blame the carburetors!

Pete

Reply to
ratatouillerat

That's actually what happened. It was limping along so I stopped at a station, checked stuff under the hood, waited a minute, started it up again and drove home - it worked fine.

Never had to dr> If you can shut it down for a few minutes and then start it up OK for

Reply to
david.margrave

I drove the truck sparingly for the next month or so, and then one day it blinked out the code for bad O2 sensor. I replaced the sensor and so far so good. I think that was the problem.

Reply to
david.margrave

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