‘Completely stalled out’: Drivers concerned after getting bad fuel

TAMPA, Fla. (WFLA) — Jocelyn Shook evacuated for Hurricane Milton and spent days searching for fuel.

Sunday, she finally found a gas station where she could fill up in Pinellas County.

A mile and a half down the road, that saving grace quickly turned into a nightmare.

"It started shaking, completely stalled out," she said. "We thought it was the battery, [so] we jumped it."

Shook immediately had her car towed to the nearest mechanic.

"When he pulled a sample, there wasn't gas in it," she said. "It was a liquid that smelled like rubbing alcohol."

"The fact that gas is what messed up my car is extremely frustrating," she said.

She isn't the only one.

Rob Painter got gas after the storm, too.

He said he was relieved when he finally found a gas station with fuel.

"Within about a mile and a half, two miles down the road, the engine light starts flashing, the engine is knocking and pinging," he said. "I called AAA first thing in the morning and had them tow my car to the dealer."

"They took a look at it, and I think it might have dodged a bullet," he said.

But that came with a $200 cost out of Painter's pocket.

"Evacuated from the storm, you see all the damage, we're dealing with no power in so many places," he said. "I just got power back today, to have this on top of that, it just felt like one more arrow to deal with."

News Channel 8 went to Ed Larcom's Garage in Tampa to find out just how common this is.

Co-owner Graham Lopez said when gas stations run out of gas, water and sediment and the things you don't want in your car typically sit at the bottom of the tank.

So after hurricanes when everyone is buying up gas, this becomes a problem.

"Water has no place to go," he said. "Everything is so saturated."

"Not only that, everybody needs gas so you're getting a million people going to all of the gas stations," Lopez said. "When they run out, they suck up all the crud and the water and all the bad stuff goes to the bottom of the tanks."

Lopez said anyone whose car stalls out after getting gas should call a tow truck. He said the more a car is driven, the bigger the problem becomes.

As for the price tag, for something like this, drivers will typically get charged by the hour.

Lopez charges $125 per hour and said a job like this should take between one and three hours, depending on the type of vehicle.

So, what are some things they should look out for to make sure they're not being taken advantage of?

"Extremely high labor times," Lopez said. "I mean, if they're telling you 'oh, it's going to take six hours to drop this tank and empty the gas out, and change the filters' and stuff like that, you know you probably shouldn't be there."

"I mean that's a lot of labor to do something like that," he said.

Lopez based those times off of American and Asian vehicles and noted foreign cars may take more times.