Date: Tue, 19 Oct 1999 21:35:22 EDT
Reply-To: Ssittservl@AOL.COM
Sender: Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From: S Sittservl <Ssittservl@AOL.COM>
Subject: Marvelous! Mysterious! But what's wrong with my engine?
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My '88 Westfalia has been running poorly lately. Frequently,
when I press the accelerator, the RPM's don't go up. Even if
I press it all the way to the floor, the engine doesn't go any
faster, and it sounds kind of like it's running out of gas. Often
(but not always), if I release the accelerator pedal and push it
again, the engine speed will surge up. Sometimes it takes three
or four repeats of this to get the engine speed up. The surge
is often a bit delayed - that is, it doesn't track smoothly with my
pressing of the pedal, but instead follows a second or two behind
what it should. At idle, the van tends to sound like it's going to die,
but it never has. My gas mileage is down to about 10 MPG.
(Usually I get about 15; I thought I used to get better than that a
year or so ago.) A couple of weeks ago, the problem would get
much worse as the gas tank got emptier - seldom a problem when
the tank was full, lots of problems by the time it reached 1/4. That's
less true than it used to be, though - now I have problems when the
tank is full, too.
My Westy likes fuel injector cleaner, so I ran a bottle through
one tank of gas. Possibly some small improvement, but not much.
"Water in the gas", I thought, grasping at straws, so I ran a bottle
of "get the water out of your gas" stuff through one tank of gas.
No improvement.
Marvel Mystery Oil has been touted on the list lately as snake oil
that actually works, so I figured I'd give it a try. I put 6 ounces in
a tank of gas, and... all my problems went away. The van ran great.
The gas mileage went back up. Marvelous! Mysterious!
But... despite the improved gas mileage, I did eventually use up that
tank of gas, and filled up again, this time without the Mystery Oil.
And all the symptoms came back, exactly as they had been before.
I used up that tank (which didn't take long), and tried a new tank full
from the same gas station, with the Mystery Oil again. And the van
runs perfectly.
So, the Mystery Oil sure is great stuff. Next I plan to add it to the
windshield washer fluid (increases wiper speed by 50%) and the
drinking water tank (prevents algae buildup; cures acid indigestion).
But it appears that I'm treating a symptom, rather than the cause.
Tempting as it is to just keep putting 50 cents worth of Mystery
Oil in the gas, it sounds like something needs fixing.
Any ideas what's really wrong with my engine?
Thanks in advance.
-Steven Sittser
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