I have a new one and want some help getting a contaminant in the diesel fuel in my pickup's tank tested.
A couple of weeks ago the truck started running crappy - and got worse over the period of a week or 10 days. I called for and got an appointment at the shop for later that week, and by the time I got tp that date -- it'd barely run at all. So they started by looking at the fuel. Whatever was in it was really nasty -- crudded up the inside of the tank, the fuel lines, the injectors, farkled the fuel injection pump, and so on. It was a VERY expensive repair.
The fact that the truck went from fine to crappy so quickly is sort of cornfusing. if it had been a buildup in the fuel system it seems it would have taken quite a while. While it could have been a batch of bad fuel, I had got it from the same station, the same pump that I'd been buying at for years. I checked with the station's owner -- known him since he was in high school and his dad before him - and nobody else had troubles with the fuel from that pump or tank.
So that leaves me with the idea that a bad guy dumped some crud down the fuel filler line. The shop that did the repair (a GMC dealership shop where I bought the last few trucks) saved a few samples of the farkled fuel. I'd like to know what's in it - besides diesel, that is. Where should I send it for analysis? Anybody got any experience here? Let me know.