Friday Harbor Fuel cost me over $700

I have ended up draining out over 20 gallons of fuel. ( what's that about 100 bucks I guess and replaced the racor) actually it was two of them so add that to the $1026 bill that was bad experience.

I have since taken the engines back to the Marine center. Got them running smooth and have put in new mid grade marked fuel from co op. I sure hope this adventure is over.

Looking forward to meeting as many of you as I can on Friday and Sat at Vic Harbor this weekend.
 
chimoii":2e9jiqic said:
I used to make a point of filling up at FH when I visited from Canada, figuring I got a deal. Then I did the calculation and now fill at Van Isle outside Sidney before I leave. Currently around $1.42/L or about $4.90/USG in $US. That seemed comparable. Van Isle replaced all their pumps and lines last year and move a lot of gas. I also like that it is ethanol free. Just a thought for anyone crossing the line.
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I just got marked Mid-grade fuel at the Co op for $127.9 a liter. Higher octane for less. Look into it.
 
rainger":19akvebj said:
chimoii":19akvebj said:
I used to make a point of filling up at FH when I visited from Canada, figuring I got a deal. Then I did the calculation and now fill at Van Isle outside Sidney before I leave. Currently around $1.42/L or about $4.90/USG in $US. That seemed comparable. Van Isle replaced all their pumps and lines last year and move a lot of gas. I also like that it is ethanol free. Just a thought for anyone crossing the line.
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I just got marked Mid-grade fuel at the Co op for $127.9 a liter. Higher octane for less. Look into it.
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Thanks for the tip but I don't have a trailer, keep the boat in the water. I would use the local Chevron or Shell (best additive packs) marked gas but their hose is not long enough. :wink
 
This is very interesting to me, as I fill in FH everytime a cross the Strait of Juan. Very often I fill there on my way into the islands and then again last thing before I leave to cross back to Sequim. It would be big time bummer to be out in Juan de Fuca and get shut down due to bad gas.

I have filled there probably 20 times with no bad aftereffects. My thinking was that they would be the busiest and thus the leas likely to have bad fuel. Also, that I do not want to be heading back across with lest than 3/4 of a tank full..... hummmm. They would seem likely to be the best option.

Sure sorry you got a load of nasty there. I would hope they would be willing to step up to the plate and make it good. As mentioned, not likely that you are the only victim if they got a bad delivery.

Harvey
SleepyC :moon
 
This is the response from FH.

Good Afternoon Greg,

I am the manager of the Friday Harbor Fuel Pier and owner of Island Petroleum Services. We take the quality of our fuel very seriously as we are the hub of the whale watching fleet, fishing fleet, and life safety (Sheriff and Fire). We service over 100 recreational boats a day. If my fuel was anything less than perfect, I would know with a crushing response from all of the above. Below is an outline of our quality procedures and facts. I would be writing all this to the party affected (Mr. Rainger) but our phone conversation was cut off by the sidewalk construction outside my office. My intention is to illustrate the issue is not the fuel even though mechanics often use it as a scape-goat.

Our tanks are tested monthly for water.

Ethanol fuel is hydrophilic meaning it attracts water to a point where phase separation occurs. There is no “layer” of water in tanks anymore. It is also a solvent and will remove particulate from all parts of fuel system if introduced to a tank having only Ethanol Free fuel previously.

Our meters are fitted with filters to 10 microns and react immediately to phase separated fuel or water by restricting fuel to a painful crawl. These are changed well ahead of capacity. All fuel is currently flowing at the high end of gallons per minute (9 seconds/gallon) so no indication of bad ethanol fuel or particulate.

The refinery changes their filters every month as well.

We own and maintain the delivery trucks and employ the driver exclusively. This gives ultimate control of quality beyond EVERY other marina on the mainland. No other mainland marinas do this.

Mr. Rainger was not the first customer of the day nor was the tank below 1/3 full. He was 15th approximately. I hand counted transactions prior to 9:00am.

We received delivery the day before, not that morning.

We serviced approximately 400 boats that weekend approximately 300 from that same tank before refilling.

I do not want to get into a debate on the C-Brat blog. I just wanted to clear up the misinformation that is floating around the post. It sounds there are others within the group who are cheating themselves of coming to Friday Harbor based on misinformation. There are others in the group who are correct in there assumption that if we had bad fuel then the problem would be wide spread.

I hope this finds you and Mr. Rainger well. While it seems he has corrected part of the issue he can use this information to solve the other.

Sincerely,

Adam
 
Good reply from the FH fuel manager. Would also be interesting to know more about the service facility working on the boat. I'm not saying they are being dishonest but it wouldn't be the first time a service facility has seen a money cow and milked it. As owners of mechanical things if we are not knowledgable about the problem before we turn it over to a mechanic, we are pretty much at their disposal. Did the boat owner find all the tank crud before taking it in for service, or learn about it from the shop without verification? Also were both tanks fueled and if so was their crud in both tanks?
 
...as we are the hub of the whale watching fleet, fishing fleet, and life safety (Sheriff and Fire). We service over 100 recreational boats a day. If my fuel was anything less than perfect, I would know with a crushing response from all of the above.
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This pretty much reinforces my gut reaction to the problem reported here.

Anyone who has been to FH knows how busy they are. Bad news travels incredibly quickly, particularly in the online world. Were there an ongoing (or even intermittent) problem with FH fuel, many, many folks would be reporting it. I didn't spend a ton of time looking, but querying "bad fuel" and "friday harbor" turns up one and only one hit - this thread.

And this...

Our meters are fitted with filters to 10 microns and react immediately to phase separated fuel or water by restricting fuel to a painful crawl. These are changed well ahead of capacity. All fuel is currently flowing at the high end of gallons per minute (9 seconds/gallon) so no indication of bad ethanol fuel or particulate.
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The above is wholly inconsistent with the problem reported. There's simply no way the crap in the tank reported could get by such filters. So, either these filters are faulty and/or don't exist as reported - or the fuel contamination came from somewhere else.

I don't doubt the sincerity of rainger, or that fuel contamination actually occurred for him. Nor do I blame him for striking Friday Harbor from his fueling locations. But, for any neutral, third-party looking at this objectively - the lack of any corroborating reports, current or past, is telling. And, as Sunbeam pointed out - the fact that the boat suffered serious fuel contamination by the previous owner is yet another data point that can't be ignored.

I'll still be buying fuel there, and won't give it a second thought.
 
As I suspected, The fuel flow through the FH system is pretty profound. It is not just sitting there idling away to fuel separation land. From their manager's response it looks like there must be some other source. Sunbeam's post on the previous history of that vessel does shed some pretty good light on a possible other direction to look.

Gregg, thanks for passing on the response. I will continue to fuel at Friday Harbor with continued confidence.

Harvey
SleepyC :moon
 
Just a quick question. If the pumps pull off the bottom like they have to or you would not be able to pump out a storage tank, why wouldn't the pumps and filter pick up contaminates consistently and regularly thru out the time the pumps are in operation? Just because the fuel moves faster when there is less of it in the tank does not hold for me. I don't worry about it and I will always change my filters and drain water seperators as and when needed.
 
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