Starting, dying, and rabbits?

[Aliceinchainsaw]

Okay, here's the problem and wondering if someone with more mechanic logic than I can assist.

Preface:
I drove my 01 explorer just fine on Saturday evening. No issues to and from grandparents, got gas and came home that night and parked in driveway per usual. Car sat all night and Sunday and most of Monday. It was brutally cold here on Sunday/Monday (Omaha) but it's fired up no problem in what I feel was colder weather previously.

This afternoon about 2pm, I went out and started her up. She fired up and immediately died. Started again, gave some gas to keep running. Let off and died. Started again.. This time needing to hit gas while cranking... Fires up... Keep it gassed for about 45 seconds... Let off the pedal and immediately dies. It's like no fuel gets there as soon as I let off pedal.

I didn't have time to look under hood as I was running late to appt at that point. Very clueless as to what could have magically gone wrong in a day and a half of sitting there.

One thing I DID notice was a bunch of little rabbit footprints under the vehicle in the snow. My immediate thought is they may have done something? Didn't see any fluid evidence though..

Anyone have any thoughts or experiences on what rabbits may or may not eat?

If it were fuel pump failure I'd imagine it wouldn't start at all.

Thanks in advance for tips on what to look for.



(this Ex recently had essentially everything under the hood maintained back in October. Full tune up and then some)

 

[koda2000]

My first thought is that perhaps you got some bad gas (contaminated with water or even diesel. We have a lot of rabbits around and they've never seemed to bother any of our vehicles. Rats, squirrels and mice - yes. You should maybe call the gas station and ask if anyone else has reported problems with their fuel, but they may try to lie to you to avoid the liability.

You might try putting a bottle or 2 of Heet into the fuel tank. If it's water contamination the Heet might help. It gets rid of ice and water in gas. If it's diesel (and you'd be surprised how little it takes) you either need to burn it all out or have the tank removed and drained.

My experience:
I once had to replace a fuel pump on a 2000 Explorer, which of course had a nearly full tank of gas. I siphoned out most of the gasoline, but ran out of plastic gas cans to but it all in. I had a plastic fuel can that had previously had diesel in it for my tractor. It appeared empty but probably had maybe an 1/2 oz of diesel in it coating the sides and bottom.

After I replaced the fuel pump in the Expl I put the gas back into the tank. It started right up and ran fine, however the next day it didn't want to start or stay running. I could barely keep it running and it was blowing gray/black smoke out the exhaust. I could smell diesel so I suspected I'd contaminated the gasoline with the diesel fuel. As diesel is heavier than gasoline after leaving the truck sit overnight the diesel sank to the bottom of the tank where it was the first thing sucked up by the fuel pump. I found by shaking/rocking the truck violently from side-to-side the diesel and gasoline would mix and the truck would run okay (but not perfectly) until I let it sit overnight again.

I decided the best way to get rid of the diesel was to get the truck running and take it for a long ride to burn all the fuel in the tank. I brought a 5 gal can of fresh gasoline with me. I ran the truck until I was sure it would run out of gas at any minute, then put 10 gals of premium in the tank. The truck was fine after that. Learned my lesson from that experience.

 

[Turdle]

You might take a look inside the air box to see if something built a nest in there , might just be a clogged maf sensor.

does the check engine light work? If it is glowing you might have codes checked as it's a crapshoot without a little more information.

 

[Aliceinchainsaw]

My first thought is that perhaps you got some bad gas (contaminated with water or even diesel. We have a lot of rabbits around and they've never seemed to bother any of our vehicles. Rats, squirrels and mice - yes. You should maybe call the gas station and ask if anyone else has reported problems with their fuel, but they may try to lie to you to avoid the liability.

You might try putting a bottle or 2 of Heet into the fuel tank. If it's water contamination the Heet might help. It gets rid of ice and water in gas. If it's diesel (and you'd be surprised how little it takes) you either need to burn it all out or have the tank removed and drained.

My experience:
I once had to replace a fuel pump on a 2000 Explorer, which of course had a nearly full tank of gas. I siphoned out most of the gasoline, but ran out of plastic gas cans to but it all in. I had a plastic fuel can that had previously had diesel in it for my tractor. It appeared empty but probably had maybe an 1/2 oz of diesel in it coating the sides and bottom.

After I replaced the fuel pump in the Expl I put the gas back into the tank. It started right up and ran fine, however the next day it didn't want to start or stay running. I could barely keep it running and it was blowing gray/black smoke out the exhaust. I could smell diesel so I suspected I'd contaminated the gasoline with the diesel fuel. As diesel is heavier than gasoline after leaving the truck sit overnight the diesel sank to the bottom of the tank where it was the first thing sucked up by the fuel pump. I found by shaking/rocking the truck violently from side-to-side the diesel and gasoline would mix and the truck would run okay (but not perfectly) until I let it sit overnight again.

I decided the best way to get rid of the diesel was to get the truck running and take it for a long ride to burn all the fuel in the tank. I brought a 5 gal can of fresh gasoline with me. I ran the truck until I was sure it would run out of gas at any minute, then put 10 gals of premium in the tank. The truck was fine after that. Learned my lesson from that experience.

I'm really hoping it's not bad gasoline lol! What a fiasco. Thanks for the suggestion though I didn't think about that possibility.

 

[Aliceinchainsaw]

You might take a look inside the air box to see if something built a nest in there , might just be a clogged maf sensor.

does the check engine light work? If it is glowing you might have codes checked as it's a crapshoot without a little more information.

Great suggestion and I do have a bluedriver odb reader I can toss on. Just waiting for it to warm up a bit outside before I go out.

 

[BruceExploder]

Fuel filter clogged?

 

[Aliceinchainsaw]

Thanks for all the replies.

Here is what I found:

Nothing. lol.

I went out today and tried to start it and it fired up and shut off right after just like it had been... so I went under the hood to check around. I was really expecting to find a chewed plug wire or something but everything looked fine. I didn't do anything other than just lightly pressing on things to see if something was loose. Confused, I decided to plug in my ODB and see if I could find a fault so I started the engine again. (No check engine light is on btw)

This time it stayed running and sounded normal. Shut it off, tried it again... and again... and again... sounds normal. Backed down the driveway and pulled up..tried it again - ran fine.

I'm stumped.

It is about 30 degrees today, much warmer than this weekend. Maybe it was just the cold?

 

[BruceExploder]

My coworkers 99 limited did the exact same thing. I just changed his fuel filter and he said it never did it again so for 10 bucks Max I would try that first.

 

[Aliceinchainsaw]

My coworkers 99 limited did the exact same thing. I just changed his fuel filter and he said it never did it again so for 10 bucks Max I would try that first.

That's not a bad idea and could have been the culprit. I have over 260,000 miles on it and couldn't tell you the last time it was changed. (I certainly haven't done it since purchasing back in 2012)