Bad gas???

sounds like it, how many miles on her?

 

Are you absolutely certain you didn't put diesel in it? If you're sure, it sounds like some kind of contaminant is in there. Very suspicious that it would happen just after you gassed up if it was not the gas.

 

Register a complaint at the gasoline station, and take your car to the local Toyota dealer to have the fuel removed from the fuel tank. The fuel line has to be disconnected and the fuel pump energized to drain the fuel.

 

If it turns out to be bad gas, that station should AT LEAST reimburse you for the tank. But I think you have a case for greater compensation to the tune of whatever the repairs are. Get some evidence from the shop.

Oh, and if it was contaminated, there are others who would have had the same experience.

 

save your gas receipt. you may want to talk to consumer affairs at the ag's office if the station balks.

 

The reality is if it was bad gas then hundreds of other cars would have also had this issue. If you're in a small enough town where there are only a few usual suspect dealer service departments, then this particular batch of bad gas should be known about already.

 

Could be contaminated at the station during pumping or some kind of cross-contamination

 

When I lived in Delaware, an acquaintance of mine had a fuel delivery business with multiple trucks delivering gasoline and diesel to various filling stations. One of his drivers accidentially delivered gasoline into the diesel tank. The mistake was not caught until after a number of diesel cars started having problems after filling up at the diesel pumps! Could it be possible that you filled up with what you thought was gasoline but could have been in reality diesel?

 

easy enough to go back to the station and pump a bit into a container.

 

I'd be tempted to get a sample from your car gaso tank for analysis, but that takes a mechanic becuase I don't think you can get a tube down into the tank. Sounds like diesel or water. You should be able to ask station if they had a problem. Normally full 100% diesel mistake will stop you before you get out of the gas station, and is expensive repair I believe.

 

When this happened to me, I went straight back to the gas station, where they sent me to their mechanic, offering to pay all costs. This is much easier than trying to fight them afterwards with unsupported accusations.

 

In my case, someone messed-up filling the storage tanks with the wrong fuel.

 

Had a friend's daughter do it to her Acura recently by mistake...$400 at the dealer...had to flush and replace plugs and injectors, I believe. She only put $5 in, got down the street a few blocks and had the same experience as the OP until it died in the road.

 

And there's probably a video.
Plan A is to get the dealer to acknowledge the problem.
Plan B is to get a mechanic to verify the problem is bad fuel.

 

Possible scenario, I think. Take one plug out of the equation and all hell breaks loose in the ignition sequence. Good to have the proper plugs in there now, but that in and of itself shouldn't have caused the failure you described - unless you just had those plugs replaced prior to the problem.

Let us know how it runs and if it's fixed. If it's still not running right, I think I'd try to drain the tank myself and fill it with reliable fuel from another station.

This one is intriguing - for us, at least. I know...aggravating for you. Sorry.

 

A loose spark-plug sounds lame. If it's loose enough to make a difference, it's going to either make a loud noise or fly out with much violence.