Well after years and years of riding I finally got some gas bad enough to stop the bike from running. Filled up in a busy kroger on 93 octane and ran about 60 miles before the bike started missing and losing power. At first I thought my clutch was slipping but it wasn't that because it was slow to accelerate and missing in neutral. The bike continued to run poorly until it stalled and gave a check engine light.

Codes p1356, p0131, p0151

Checked the plug wires and they were good and let the bike cool. Finally it started up like chitty chitty bang bang and I limped it home snorting and bucking intending to trailer it to the dealership since its on 1700 miles old.

Filled up the bike just prior to home and smelled a sweet skunky smell from the tank. Bike performance improved but was still missing and showing codes. Added ethanol treatment and replaced the ruined plugs that were snow white and everything seems to be ok.

Word to the wise check you gas as the first thing if bike runs poorly. Interestly enough the BMW RT I sold my uncle filled up behind me on the same skunky gas and ran fine.

 

I rode a BMW RT cross country a few years back, and I can attest that the thing will run on **** water if need be.

 

My Harley is a bad gas magnet, haven't found a decent gas station for years now.

 

I'm curious, why was the Harley affected by the bad gas but not the BMW?

 

I was victim of this my last tank of fuel. When I first bought the bike I just used 87 octane without that garbage ethanol crap in it..i try to avoid that junk like the plague. Everybody kept telling me "you HAVE" to run premium..so I did, stopped and filled up at the local Pilot truck stop with their 92 octane (10% ethanol)...and oddly enough that is when the bike started acting like it was "cold blooded". Took about 1-2 blocks before the bike stopped coughing/chugging and smoothed out, at that time I didn't think much of it or the correlation to the new fuel.

Last tank of gas I filled up on my way home, same spot as always with the 92octane with ethanol junk. That afternoon when I woke up and headed to daughters game, it was chugging terribly..and never came out of it and eventually died 3 blocks from home. Took awhile to restart and nurse it back.
No codes, so I was stumped. Later I went to store and picked up a can of seafoam and dumped the whole can in the bike thinking maybe since the bike was an '06 with only 4000 miles injectors were getting crudy, but was also thinking bad gas at that point since the rough running went back to this station I had now been using for a month. Half tank later of seafoam saturated fuel and the bike started running like it's old self on the 87 octane fuel.

I finally got that tank of crap gas ran out, went back to my old station and filled it back up with good old American dinosaur 87 octane with no ethanol garbage in it...and 100 miles into this tank thus far, no more acting like a cold blooded bike..fire it up cold and it runs as good as it does warmed up. So I'm never filling up at that pilot station ever again, and this cemented the fact of why I don't run ethanol is anything I own..had issues yrs ago when it first hit the scene and froze up my snowmobiles.

 

My 06 RK was gas sensitive too.It would get spells where it would act a little cold blooded too.Every so often I put about half a bottle of Chevron Techron in to help keep everything clean.We don't have much choice around here,everything has ethanol in it.

 

The only thing I can figure is the BMW as a less sophisticated fuel injection and can run on low octane fuel. The BMW gas tank smelled horrible when we checked it as well.

 

As with my diesel vehicles, I only fill up at stations that I know have high turnover of fuel. My opinion is that fresh fuel is a necessity. The longer it sits unused the more issues it will have, I've never had a diesel fuel related problem. I have been using 87 to 89 octane in my bikes. Reason is that I don't feel that the higher octane fuels in my area are that "fresh". Meaning they aren't used as much and therefore are prone to sit in the ground tanks longer before fresh fuel is pumped in to replace. So far I haven't noticed any issues using the lower octane fuel so far with over 18K miles and I'm sure over time I may have an issue. But I'll deal with that when it happens.