Fuel Filters

Gasoline can contain a number of abrasive materials including rust, paint chips and just good old everyday dirt from sitting in your gas tank.

When this stuff gets into your fuel system, very bad things can happen. For instance, your fuel pump and fuel injectors, which act as the heart of your car, pumping life-giving fuel to the engine, will start to clog and give out.  If these materials make their way to the internal workings of your engine, they can impede the full burn of your gasoline, causing your engine to lose efficiency.

Fuel filters are an extremely important part to the everyday function and preservation of your engine. As engines become more sophisticated, the components that make up those systems have to follow suit.  But, what happens if your filter becomes clogged? Just as unfiltered gasoline can declare war on your fuel system, so can a clogged filter. When the filter clogs, it begins restricting the flow of gasoline to the engine. This fuel starvation makes the pump work harder, putting unnecessary strain on it, and leading it to an early death. That is why changing your fuel filter regularly is recommended, and considered a necessary preventative measure.

Keeping your fuel filter up to snuff is also extremely important to our environment. When your filter becomes clogged and your fuel pump starts working harder, it is dumping more and more gas into the fuel system trying to keep up with the lack of performance. This results in less fuel efficiency and again, an untimely death of your fuel pump. A new fuel pump will cost you money and cost the environment the materials to make it and the energy used to ship it. Not a good thing.

To prevent this, it is recommended that you change your fuel filter every two years, or 24,000 miles, whichever comes first. Or, you can look in your owner’s manual, which should have a list of how often routine maintenance should be performed.

The next time you take your car to the shop to be worked on, tell your mechanic to take a look at your fuel filter. If it’s a little rusty or clogged, get it replaced. Trust us, it will save you loads of cash in the long run, and save our environment all at the same time.