She called me because she couldn't get her car started after work. We had to get it towed out of the underground parking which is quite a pain in the ass apparently.
I spent a couple hours troubleshooting the issue (smoky exhaust, barely started, ran like shit) and I burned out the starter in the process and had to put a new one in. Starters in these little 3.7L engines are pretty pathetic.
At some point in all this she mentioned she had filled up before driving to work, so I figured out how to jumper the fuel pump and pumped out this piss-colored junk. Feels oily like diesel, doesn't burn explosively like you'd expect with straight gas.
Fresh fuel and some Seafoam snake oil to maybe clean injectors. Since I didn't drop the tank to clean it perfectly, she's going to put small amounts in for a few fills and burn it off completely between fills because the solution to pollution is dilution.
Her receipt showed she uses the gas pump, not the diesel, so I'm wondering how many people got to deal with this bullshit since I'm guessing the station got an entire compartment contaminated. Haven't bothered to talk to the company, since I did the work myself and they certainly aren't going to reimburse me for my time.
Ah well, it's an excuse to do a pile of other maintenance I'd planned anyway and had parts for.
Wife is happy she isn't buying a new car. Happy wife, happy life.
FWIW my last two four door cars were 1.6 and 2.0, and I'm in the US. (Although they were both kias.)
And how exciting was it getting on the throughway?
Try doing 190 kph on the Autobahn in a car the size of a rollerskate, it’s plenty exciting (i.e. scary as fuck).
The fastest car I have owned was a 2.0T. The slowest was a 7.2 L V8. The 2.0T had over 200 Hp in a smaller car and the V8 had all of 290Hp in a land Yacht. I swear displacement has north america drunk with stupid. And I had no issues with 1.6L cars on any Canadian highway.
My 1.6L engine had around 200HP when it was new. It's now a bit older so it's probably lost a bit. And the tyres I have aren't really optimized for acceleration. But it's more than fast enough to get around any public roads. It also helps a lot when the car only weighs 1400kg and not over 2000kg like most American cars.
Just making everything bigger does not make it better, in fact it often makes it worse in many if not all ways. But this is a lesson Americans have yet to learn.