I have an '04 SL. A few weeks ago,we had sub freezing temps and I was unable to start my car. I had it towed to the dealership. Upon inspection, the service people said I had Ice crystals in my gas tank. They blamed me for pumping bad gas into my car. I questioned them b/c I use the same gas station for my 2 other cars and have had no problems for the past 5 years. It took almost 2 weeks to get one o-ring.

Has anyone had this problem with their 6th gen? Also, is there a TSB out. I had to pay out of pocket for this one. They did not consider it a warranty repair. THanks for your help.

Dino

 

Man sorry to hear about that.
I thought that gas had too high of an alcohol concentration for it to freeze?
I dunno it's been a long time since Houston has had sub freezing temps.

What gas station was it?
Were you running any additives?
Do you have your reciept for the gas? A buddy of mine works for Exxon Mobile and he was telling me that they are always having problems with bad gas being dumped into the holding wells below the ground.

 

So what, they replaced a o-ring? And they are making you pay for it? If the part failed, the warranty will cover it. Unless you are buying gas from some Russian dude from Syberia, the gas would not make you at fault. All gas that is sold out of the pump for street use meets the manufactures requirements. (Or moreso, the Manufactures meet the gas')

 

BTW Alcohol freezes at a lower temperature then water. -117 degrees Celsus. So it would have to be uber cold to freeze it.

 

Well what can happen is that if you never fill the tank up more than 1/2, condensation can build up over time. Until there is a high enough concentration of water in the gas that the car won't start. A 59 cent bottle of gas line anti-freeze, and waiting a few hours is usually the cure.

Its a very extreme situation if there is enough water in the gas tank from condensation to stall the vehicle. I've only seen it once when a poor college student only kept $5 worth of gas in his truck.

CM.

 

Dallas is a humid environment, the $5.00 method can be a problem here too, especially in old cars.

The evaporative emissions system should be your barrier between the outside elements and the fuel system.
It isn't exactly a hermetic system but there isn't much moist outdoor air getting into the system through the evap canister. If the computer knows when the fuel cap is loose, you would think the fuel system would be fairly well sealed against environmental moisture. That's probably the dealer's position.
There is a chain of convenience/fuel stores in this area called Rack Track. They sell ethanol blends. In their radio advertising they say that if their fuel damages your car they will pay the claim. I'm guessing there are/have been problems with some of the ethanol blends in the past.

 

BP/Arco, and pretty much every other manufacture has been putting Ethanol in gas for many years now. It's called oxygenation. Ethanol, and MTBE (which are pretty much phased out) contains more oxygen then standard gas. So when they are burned there is less Carbon Monoxide and Hydro Carbons put off, this makes for cleaner combustion gases.

On new cars there is no difference, as the cars built from the 80's on up were designed to use oxygenated fuels. Thus, if the service writer claims that your use of an oxygenated fuel caused your problem, I would look him in the face and kick him square in the nuts.

 

Or you could point him to 9-3 and 9-4 of the owners manual where ethanol and mtbe are covered.

 

I put Amoco Ultimate in all my cars(now BP). I keep the tanks full at all times. It would take a lot of water to form Ice crystals in there. The thing that gets me is that I use the same gaqs station for my '03 max and my BMW. Just to be safe, I no longer use that gas station.

They basically drained the bad gas and refilled the tank along with some dry gas. Not sure what the o-ring was for.

 

I would have to have read the owners manual to do that. Maybe I will go check it out.

 

Probably if you would have put your car in a heated garage for a few hours, you would have been able to start it.

All it takes is one bad load of gas to mess up the whole tank. I would not blame this on the Maxima. Put some gas treatment in or gasohol in once in a while to pull any water out.