contaminated petrol

[rynnor]

Bugger! My car has been affected - its been really sluggish since I filled it up early last week and one of the dash fault lights keeps coming on after 5 minutes driving - never thought about the fuel until I read the story.

I dont fill up at tesco or morrison though - just my local garage but it obviously shares supplier and got the same crap batch of unleaded.

Alas for me theres actually a comment on the bbc website by someone who uses the same garage as me too - bugger - if it ends up that its damaged my car I'm sure as hell gonna sue in the small claims court - still got my petrol receipt to prove it too.

Strictly big name garages for me from now on.

Filled it up with super unleaded from esso now - just hope it works through without damage

 

[Tom]

You may not have this problem. It could be water in the fuel, a common problem which can happen when the underground tanks run close to empty. Or it could be crap stirred up in the tanks by a recent visit by a refuelling lorry.

I would advise you to remove the fuel filter and take a sample of the fuel - with the correct precautions obviously, since petrol is very flammable (so make sure the car is nice and cold first).

Once you've done that, keep brimming it up with fuel from a station you feel you can trust. And it wouldn't hurt to buy a few bottles of injector cleaner, and bung them in.

Probably the worst that will happen is your lambda sensor will need cleaning or replacing. Its not an expensive job.


I think this 'crisis' is a little bit exaggerated myself, and I hope I'm not proven wrong because the national bill will be high

 

[Draylor]

Well at least this will teach folks why supermarket petrol stations can afford to be cheap.

 

[Tom]

Because they don't use the same mix of additives that the branded stations do.

Other than that, it mostly comes from the same refineries.

 

[Draylor]

Normally thats the case Tom, but this batch seems to have been brought into the country by some noddy little cheap supplier - you get what you pay for.

 

[Tom]

I very much doubt thats the case, its more likely to end up being some mistake where somebody hasn't cleaned a tank properly, or hasn't flushed some lines or something of that ilk.

You can suffer bad fuel at just about any station. Try filling your car immediately after the fuel tanker has made a delivery - you'll end up with all the crap running through your system.

Shell had a very serious problem many years ago with fuel http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shell_Canada

 

[rynnor]

Some progress - with the new fuel working its way into the mix the dashboard warning light no longer comes on but its still sluggish on acceleration and has occasional blips where your pushing down harder on the accelerator but theres no acceleration.

Will take it out for a longer run in a minute to see how it does.

 

[Tom]

Just keep topping it up on every drive. A fiver here, a tenner there.

Once you're through a tank, replace the fuel filter.

 

[Tallen]

Oddly enough, the Saturday before this all came out my local Tesco shut it's petrol forecourt so im pretty sure they knew about it before the media did.