Does a fuel filter ever go out fairly suddenly?

I drive about 50-100 miles a day. I run the gas tank down to empty a lot but I do put seafoam in the gas every now and then.

For the past two weeks the car hasn’t started the first time in the morning. I thought that was because of the cold.

Today I am out driving on the interstate and I notice a lack of power. I didn’t notice any lack of power when I got on the interstate a few minutes earlier.

Lack of power is the primary symptom. It might be stuttering a bit at intersections but I can’t remember if it was doing that before. Right now if I put the accelerator all the way to the floor it will not respond. I have to push it slowly up to a max speed of 40-50mph.

When I noticed the problem I was an hour away from home and I had to finish what I was doing and drive it all the way back. When I got it home I turned it off. I tried restarting it but it didn’t catch. Then I tried again and it worked. I drove it around the block to see if a blockage might have been cleared but it still had no power.

I guess the other possible culprits are:

• blocked catalytic converter

• bad fuel pump

• ????

I am going to replace the fuel filter first and see if that fixes it. Have you ever seen a fuel filter go bad all of a sudden like that?