Why is my car hard to start after getting gas?
Filling up the gas tank floods the engine with excess fuel, creating an overly rich condition that causes the car to bog down or refuse to start normally. Drivers have to resort to holding down the gas pedal while cranking to clear the extra fuel before the vehicle will finally fire up and run smoothly.
What people tried
Every workaround mentioned in the threads below. We haven’t tested any of them — and nobody here is claiming they worked.
Found another way around this?
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Why is my car hard to start after getting gas?
- 1Giving it a little throttle to clear out the bogging down after startupDid this help you?
- 2Flooring the pedal while cranking to clear the flooded injectorsDid this help you?
- 3Checking the fuel pump and spark plugsDid this help you?
- 4Pressing the gas pedal and holding it down for a couple of seconds while starting the carDid this help you?
- 5Replacing the air filterDid this help you?
- 6Replacing the MAP sensorDid this help you?
- 7Attempting to jump the battery with a portable chargerDid this help you?
- 8Trying the screwdriver on the starter trickDid this help you?
- 9Replacing the fuel pumpDid this help you?
- 10Taking the car to multiple mechanicsDid this help you?
In their words
Unedited, grouped by where they were said, most upvoted first within each place, each linked to the thread it came from.
“Every time I refuel, it does this crap. I’m suspecting an EVAP issue, and she smells like she’s running rich, but it isn’t throwing any codes.”source ↗
“She eventually fires up, but bogs down unless I give it a little throttle. Once I rev it a bit, everything clears up and she runs normally.”source ↗
“It doesn’t happen on every startup—only after I refuel. She eventually fires up if I floor the pedal while cranking, which I clear stops the injectors from injecting more fuel which fixes the overly rich condition.”source ↗
“Every time I fill this god forsaken car with gas, it refuses to start, and the only way it will start is it i hit the gas pedal and just keep it going for a couple seconds.”source ↗
“I tried to crank the engine a couple more times, but it wouldn't start. The cranking actually started to fade out and then stopped altogether.”source ↗
“Now when trying to start the engine.. I get clicks and no cranking at all. First it was louder clicks that got softer, and now faint.”source ↗
“We did just get a new fuel pump, would that have changed anything? The mechanics said that's what it was”source ↗
Where this came up
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