It was nine years ago when we first produced an article about contaminated fuel here on PetrolPrices.com.
Since then, a great many people have used our comments section to report incidences of contaminated fuel and share their experiences. As such, we thought it was high time we gave the article an update and provided some advice.
A steady stream of contaminated fuel stories continue to hit the news, but there are also more isolated incidents that seem to go unreported, as our comments section suggests
If you think you’ve been affected by contaminated fuel – perhaps because your car starts to judder and feel unresponsive, there are some important steps you should take.
- Stop driving the vehicle as soon as you can so that if the fuel is contaminated, it doesn’t do any more damage to your engine.
- Contact a local garage or main dealer and seek their confirmation that contaminated fuel is the cause of your problems. If so, arrange for them to take a sample of fuel from the vehicle. You will probably have to pay for this initially, but can potentially claim for it further down the line.
- Document everything that happens, including noting all related expenses.
- Contact the retailer where you purchased the fuel in the first instance.
- If you need help dealing with any claim, make use of your local trading standards office or Consumer Direct.
- Don’t let contaminated fuel sit in your tank for too long. You will need to arrange for your tank to be drained and the fuel disposed of.
- Check with your insurance company with regard to how they can help you; You may be in luck if you have accidental damage coverage.
Contaminated Fuel: The Number One Precaution!
A key precaution that will really help you if you one day fall victim to contaminated fuel is to always keep your fuel receipts. If you ever end up in a compensation battle, that tiny piece of paper has the potential to make your life so much easier.
We’ve carried over the many past comments from the older version of this article. We are happy to let the comments section act as a forum so your can reach out to see if fellow drivers have experienced issues at the same garage(s). However, please note you are responsible for your own posts, so please ensure you are confident of the facts before singling out any particular garage.
Misfuelling
If you pull away from a petrol station and suddenly get a sinking feeling that something’s wrong with your car, don’t immediately assume contaminated fuel is the issue. You may have in fact have been one of the 150,000 drivers each year who inadvertently fill their car with the wrong fuel.
So, retrace your steps and see if this might have been the case; check your receipt as well – if it says diesel and you use unleaded, you may be in a spot of bother. It’s at this point that you’ll hope you added misfuelling cover to your car insurance policy – or even took out a dedicated policy to protect yourself against such an incident. Either way, it’s time to call a local garage – you should never try to drive a car that’s been misfuelled OR filled with contaminated fuel.
Maybe this is sabotage by the government to try and bully us off the roads and onto public transport? His argument being you wont have to cough up repair costs if you travel by bus/train.
My car is a diesel so im not affected.
Diesel can be affected, I just got affected by water contaminated diesel
I thought my car was playing up as a result of getting water in the engine. (it was quite a big puddle)
The engine was very sluggish, I was having difficulty accelerating and it felt as if the engine wanted to cut out.
Having heard a number of reports about contaminated petrol, I thought the symptoms were similar to those I was experiencing.(I’ve gone to Morrison’s for my fuel recently as they are the cheapest in this area)
A well known motoring journalist suggested using a premium grade petrol might alleviate the problem. I put in some BP Ultimate, which happens to be about 10p per litre more than I normally pay, and that seems to have done the trick.
I may have gotten water in the engine or I may have purchased contaminated fuel. I don’t know which is right.
What I do know is that my car is running as well as it has for a long time.
I realise we are all striving to pay as little as possible for our fuel but, for the foreseeable future, I will have to pay the extra money for premium fuel until I think my engine is back to it’s best.
My friend’s car began cutting out and running poorly the other day. She called the AA, who initially didn’t know what the problem was, but when she told him she had been through a large puddle, he said it was possible water had gotten into an oxygen sensor, so he fixed that and the car was fine.
Now it seems her symptoms are very similar to the contaminated fuel ones.
It has been unusually wet in the South East the last few days, with lots of water lying in the roads…
I suspect the problems may not be contaminates in the fuel … more likely
something has been left out!!
They do add chemicals to modify the burn properties of the fuel … so each
and every batch of unleaded ignites and burns the same as every other batch.
If these additives are left out the fuel could burn too quickly … modern engine management systems will correct this up to a point (by retarding the timing up to a certain preset amount).
The problem is, if the adjustement required isn’t available, the engine will
not run correctly.
In fact, with the right condiitons, too much heat will pass into the exhaust manifold damaging lambda sensors … this is what i suspect has happened
to many cars.
The more i hear the more i am convinced that supermarket fuel is not as good as shell, bp, etc and the price difference is not buying the addititives in supermarket petrol.
A friend of mine who drives for buisiness buys branded fuel as he gets better mpg. he tested it in his astra and it is more profitable to do that.
I contacted this web site about it but didn’t get anything useful.
I just want to be clear about it all, was it dirty petrol, is supermarket petrol not as good as branded?
The cheaper the car, the more robustly unsophisticated the engine .. the more expensive the car it definitely pays in the long run to cough up the extra monies for the super. As in life, you only get what you pay for!
As for supermarket petrol being inferior to major brand products; go to any refinery or distribution depot and you will see tankers from all retailers all filling up from the same storage tanks – there is no difference.
However, it is just possible that supermarkets are adjusting their pumps to dispense the absolute minimum amount of fuel for each gallon shown on the pump dial. I think trading standards still carry out random checks to ensure that pumps are not giving ‘short measure’ but the latitude is quite wide and the pumps are set up by the retailers own engineers.
Bit like crisps; weigh a 25g packet of crisps from some manufacturers and you will get 25g and not a gram more! Others may give 26 or 27g per packet.
Chris Smith’s friend (see above) may have been getting slightly more petrol for each gallon purchased at the Shell of BP garage, whilst the supermarket pumps were dispensing less. That would have given a better mpg for Shell and BP.
I run an M5 and have always used Shell Optimax (now rebranded Vpower) and occaisionally BP Ultimate. Once trying BP Ultimate 106, but at 2.42 a litre not an economic option! I got one hiccup last Sunday when still cold but its seems ok now 98 RON is recommended by BMW for my car and it returns about 3 to 4 mgg better than using standard fuel. I’d recommend a try of the Ultimate 106 as it seems to make things better even afterwards when I reverted to "normal" Optimax, its not just the RON but also the other "cleaning" additives that seem to help things work better.
"As for supermarket petrol being inferior to major brand products; go to any refinery or distribution depot and you will see tankers from all retailers all filling up from the same storage tanks – there is no difference."
The fuel has to be modified at some stage to produce the variations that are sold on the forecourt – i.e. V-Power vs Greenergy vs Ultimate vs…. These all start out in life as gasolene, but the end product is different. The end product could potentially have different characteristics and qualities. There have been controlled tests carried out by the motoring media that show Tesco 99 (Greenergy) consistantly underperforms against Optimax (as it was known at the time)
I have experienced the same problems stalling, cutting out .juddering etc over the last few days,I have now got to replace the lambda sensor as it is US! I filled up today with BP ultimate and disconnected the lambda sensor car now runs quite well you shouldn,t need to replace anything else as it should have only burnt this sensor out. you don,t need to be a mechanic and should be able to pick one up for around £20-£50 depending on make of car. Look on e-bay there are loads!
I drive a diesel so I’m unaffected on this round of fuel problems.
However, I experienced something similar during summer when I done a splash and dash at a BP station.
I put £10 of BP Ultimate Diesel into my almost empty tank. This product has a higher cetane rating (55) that regular diesel (51) for better performance.
Better performance ? I experienced knocking, loss of power at high speed and juddering at lower speed. I sorted the problem the following morning by filling the tank with regular diesel.
I wonder if the octane rating of this "contaminated" fuel is wrong for a growing percentage of cars, especially the older ones.
My Beetle was suffering from the juddering issues this week. Like other posters I assumed it was problems from going through large puddles. Then it wouldn’t start at all. The aa guy said the engine had flooded and showed me how to restart it. same thing happened the next day and I managed to get it going but now the engine light is warning me to get it checked. Garage are coming to take it tomorrow (I only have it 4 weeks). I filled up at Tescos last week and am convinced it;s the fuel.
I understand they are refunding the cost of the fuel, but are they going to pay costs of engine repairs too?
PS. The garage said it may be a fuel problem and that supemarket fuel has reacted badly with Passats and Polos in the past. Surely that’s something that should be mentioned when buying a car?
I pulled into a BP station on the A38 near newton Abbott in Devon having travelled 200 problem-free miles from Oxfordshire. I dispensed £25 of unleaded into my brand new car and drove to the accelleration lane where I waited for a gap in the traffic. When there was a gap in the traffic, I stamped my foot on the accellerator pedal and……….. I went nowhere – my engine had cut out. I pushed my car onto the verge, called the AA and waited. The AA patrolman soon arrived and, despite his best efforts, he was unble to fix or diagnose the problem. My car was loaded onto a recovery truck and taken to a francised dealer in Plymouth. Whilst I was being relayed to Plymouth I noted another broken down, brand new car about 400 metres along the road being loaded onto a RAC wagon (this was a significant, crucial observation). The folowing day, I received a telephone call from the dealer who broke the news that my fuel was contaminated. I concluded, quite reasonably, that the BP petrol was contaminated but realised that I may have a problem in proving it – then I remembered the RAC wagon. I immediately made two telephone calls; the first to the BP site to warn them that they were selling contaminated petrol, the second to the RAC. The RAC were very helpful and, via their records, were able to put their member in touch with me and guess what? You guessed it – the driver had just filled up from the same BP station and that his petrol was also contaminated. I borrowed a friend’s car and reattended the BP station three days later only to see that they were still selling fuel from the same pump. I challenged the proprietor who arrogantly stated that there was nothing wrong with his fuel. I persuaded him to fill a new can with petrol from the pump I had used and asked him to decant it into a new bucket. Despite there being a thick, black sediment he did not acknowledge that there was a problem. I told him that I was holding him responsible for my vehicle’s £400+ repair bill to which he replied "Write to me". I then contacted Devon Trading Standards and BP customer Care. BP were most unhelpful and were keen to point out that all BP did was to supply the signage and the fuel to the site. They told me that the proprietor was responsible for the fuel he sold and would be peronally liable should it be proven that he had been negligent. Trading Standards were also inept in dealing with the problem despite me furnishing them with the details of the driver of the other contaminated vehicle. They accepted the proprietor’s claim that the bucket into which I had seen the fuel decanted was dirty and it was this dirt which was laying in the bottom of it!
The proprietor admitted liability several months later only when he received a near identical claim from the other driver (my claim included loss of earnings for aditional leave I had to take). Bizarrely, his insurers would not refund the £25 I had spent on the contaminated fuel! This experience happened about three years ago but the parrallels drawn are exactly that of the current crisis. Keep your fuel receipts, ask the repairer to retain a sample of the fuel they had drained and keep your invoice for the repair work. It will come as no surprise that I now boycott all BP sites.
My bike seems to have been experiencing performance issues this week, I should add that its a push bike, my theory is that I’ve been inhaling contaminated fumes from these vehicles which have affected the engine (i.e. me!) – could I get compensation?
Two weeks ago our diesel scenic broke down. It has been diagnosed as having contaminated diesel (particles have been found in the diesel). We has caused damage throughout the fuel system and we now need the complete system replacing at a cost of £3700! Has anyone else had any similar experiences and can anyone give us any advise.
I ALLWAYS BUY MY FUEL AT THE SHELL GARAGE IN WEST MERSEA
IT MIGHT BE A BIT MORE PER PENCE PER LTR BUT THE SERVICE IS ALLWAYS
VERY GOOD AND MY CAR RUNS VERY WELL NO PROBLEMS AT ALL
We always get our Derv and Unleaded from Morrisons (Hinckley) and have never had a problem. I have never noticed and performance diferance between brands with the same rating.
Well I have worked at 3 diferant petrol stations and at all 3 of them if ther was 2 much derv in the tanker at a delivery it went into the unleaded. As the tests have shown silacone in the fuel and silacone is an adative in Derv it dose make you wonder.
i work in a texaco garage in south wales in the town there is only us and tesco since the outbrake of this ‘contaminated fuel’ the takings have been up by 40% and we arnt even in the efected area.
Seems the contaminant has been narrowed down to "silicone" an additive used for defoaming in Diesel Fuel. Someone’s tank cleaning procedures are a little off the mark. Silicone will coat the Oxygen Sensor, and cause false signals to the fuel Managment System on modern Petrol cars. Older vehicles will not suffer quite as badly.
As a result, the Market Price for "Spot Petrol" has risen 1.90p/litre over the last week. The motorist just can’t win.
My car – Renault Megane – had the same symptoms after filling up at Tesco last weekend. Turned out to be a faulty ignition coil, repaired under warranty. Car now runs fine.
Just wondering if some smaller garages are jumping on the bandwagon and diagnosing poisoned oxygen sensors when its a dodgy coil?
No dought some will be making money out of this
It would appear that the price of PETROL will go up according to tonights news, no doubt us diesel runners will get kicked in the teeth too.
The good old motorist paying the price for someones problem yet again
Supply and demand I’m afraid.
Most of the price rise expected in Fuel, comes from the fact, that Crude in NW Europe closed on Friday at $61.81/Bbl. It has been climbing for the last two weeks.
The Market Differential between Petrol and Diesel, has shrunk to 00.61p/litre.
However this is for 50ppm Fuels. The closing of the gap, could be down to accelerating Petrol price, against the stable Diesel price. Trader’s see an opportunity, to make money out of a contrived shortage, brought about by recent events.
The amount of contaminated Fuel is miniscule, compared to the Retail Volume throughout the country. Some Retailer’s will put up their prices, to offset any claims made against them, and we all know who they are.
Hello to everyone using this site.
I always buy my fuel from Asda at lower earley, my wife is on maternity leave so the car dosent get driven all that much at the moment, but I took the car out for myself this saturday and it ran awful, juddering throttle not being responsive with the car totally cutting out on the lower earley road.
Has anyone experienced these problems after purchasing fuel from Asda, my car is a VW Passat, just over three years old.
if this situation, with the contaminated petrol, raises the price of petrol, i for one will not be using tesco or morrisons , in any way.
as this is the only way i see to protest. it is not our fault ,so why should we pay.
Approved Driving Instructor.
Prices havent changed in my area. 86.9 unleaded 90.9 derv.
As a diesel driver, I agree with Stuart Cakebread’s comment that we’ll get stung for a price increase.
Also, – as conspiracy theories abound and why hesitate to add to them – as we can see the non-supermarket premium brands are well rated; are the current events a ploy to get the unleaded drivers to buy the premium products from premium priced fuel companies? By what mechanism I’m not going to speculate but let’s face it, cheaper fuel supplied by supermarkets is taking away the revenue of BP, Esso, Total et al and what better way to guarantee yourself the custom.
My local BP garage in Wilmslow Cheshire has put unleaded up by 4p a litre in the last few days and is now charging 89.9p. Talk about fleecing the motorist! Hopefully everybody will boycott them and fill up at Esso or Shell where the price is now 86.9p after a 1p increase in the last few days.
Can I just say its not the local station that desides the price of Fuel, its the main fuel company. They take into acount prices at neighbouring stations against the volume of fuel that has sold in the past few days, if the price is low and sales are up the price will rise untill sales start to drop.
I filled up at a JET garage today Near Haworth 88.9 for diesel, yet a couple of miles down the road in Keighley its 90.9……Only 2ppl i know, but i refuse point blank to pay the extra…………….Im tight thats why i drive a diesel after all 🙂
And thanks Samantha Nice to see someone else agree’s with me
Sainsbury’s have been unaffected, but I think still get tarred with the "cheap quality fuel" brush. It’s not a widely known fact, but all of Sainsbury’s is supplied by BP (check out the ‘Fuel Info’ section of this site), so there’s nothing to worry about, you’re getting BP quality without the 3-4 pence per litre premium. I’ve never had and problems with Sainsbury fuel. My local Sainsbury’s is charging 85.9 and 88.9 for unleaded and diesel respectively, so I shall continue to use them.
There has been a rumour, (which by now will probably be fact), that following the faulty fuel escapade, there could be another 2p increase in unleaded fuel. Either these crackpots think that we are simpletons or they really do want to screw us for as much as possible. Budget is in a week or two and I wonder if Gordon Brown will jump on the bandwagon again with more increases – put off till September ?
Makes you wonder if the ‘faulty fuel’ was sabbotaged on purpose – they must think we are really from planet zog if they thought we hadn’t already considered that option.
Surely somehere along the line, someone in the supply industry , must be breaking the law by putting up prices, with every comment or rumour made by the media associated with fuel supplies, Iran, Iraq and whatever excused they can think of for adding to their £billions profits !!!
The exact source of the contaminated fuel has now been identified. The Company in question, "HARVEST ENERGY" operates a fuel distribution plant in the South of England, which supplies most of the leading supermarkets with fuel. Clearly the blame lies squarely at the door of this irresponsible company The costs for repair of affected vehicles / replacement of fuel stocks should be met by "HARVEST ENERGY" NOT the long suffering British motorist !!
I haven’t suffered a breakdown, but I HAVE been affected by other local filling stations apparently profiteering and jacking up their prices by 3p/litre while the local Tesco is getting its new supplies in… price for Unleaded in the Ely (Cambs) area is up as high as 93.9p/litre 🙁
Those cheeky stations have also jacked up their price for diesel too!!
Fortunately I have beenn unaffected by the contaminated fuel farce but I have some friends who have.
One, a lady took her car to the Garage in Dagenham and they had it until Saturday afternoon and had not even checked the Oxygen Sensor until I mentioned it to her and she told the garage to check the Sensor which was precisely the problem . When the Sensor was replaced the problem was cured.
Incompetent or just another garage taking the P… out of a female motorist. Surprise Surprise.
In reply to Andrew Messias question of 4th March. She had purchased her |Petrol at Asda the day the defect occurred
I have been affected by the contaminated fule.I filled up my car on my way home from work 0n the 20th.just a few short miles later my engine warning light came on.My car is not even a year old.The garage told me there was a problem with the oxygen sensor,and that this was porobably due to contaminated fule.My car has been back to the garage twice since.The petrol station where i filled up refuses that my problems are due to there petrol ( still !)because they are not tesco or morrisons. I filled up at the gulf station in cuffley,has any one elce had any problens with a gulf station?
There are no problems with GULF petrol stations.
Looks like you have been conned by the garage mate like many other people!
Regarding the contaminated fuel. It only applies to unleaded fuel so why is everybody putting up both unleaded and diesel. This is being very unfair to drivers of diesel vehicles who fortunately go away with no problems. If any one should pay it is the super markets who caused the problem. I know Tesco said they would compensate for damage to cars but you bet there are clauses attached.
What is the response of other drivers
Bring back the carburettor, never had problems like this with them. lol
i owe a 190E 2.6 corsworth its powerful but again its old car. used to go down to the supermarket petrols like tesco and sainsburys for cheaper petrol because my mototr drinks like hell, but i found out supermarket petrols arent any good i lost power and mpg. now i started to use shell V-power everytime and i always full tank it and some times if i dont find a shell station would go in to a Bp station and fill up the Ultimate fuel, they are much better, better mpg, and i felt the difference in power and accerlation.
So Shell V-power is the one for me. and so for you guys out there aswell.
I have just had it confirmed to me by Tesco Claims that I will not be recompensed for the garage bill of £820 (2 x o2 sensors, filter, fuel, etc) because I am one of those people that don’t bother keeping receipts and only pay by cash, no club card!! no credit card!! just faith in a large company to supply a product as stated ie fuel fuel nothing but fuel. We have been informed there is no recourse to take this any further, however, I will be boycotting Tesco’s (and all my friends who use them) even though this will mean myself and the wife having to travel further to shop and refuel.
According to the Claims Representative and we have spoken to many of them, all with a different story, I am the first one they have heard of that has no proof of purchase, I find this hard to believe.
This is not only bad PR on Tesco’s part but false economy, ie 4 or 5 shopping trips with a few fuel fill ups would have recouped the compensation amount but now they will lose my custom.
One other thing, its been mentioned about getting the cctv footage, unfortunately I have been informed that cctv is kept on a 2 week loop so will have been erased and is also covered by the Data Protection Act , which is convenient for them. It shows little forethought on their behalf.
Re Contaminated Fuel,
Has anyone experienced problems with oxygen sensors recently in the Frome Somerset area ? I had 2 sensors replaced 20,000miles ago and are defective again.
Hi,
does anyone now of a list of sites that had contaminated fuel. We are having trouble pinpointing the exact one.
thanks
Shortly after refueling with BP Ultimate Diesel my Corsa experienced running difficulties,engine management & emissions light illuminated leading to the turbocharger siezing & an £1100 repair bill,cannot 100% say it was the fuel but if not its a huge coincidence.
The garage in question & UK BP stated after boasting about its in storage sensor equipment ‘ our fuel is fine,not liable ‘
London area.
Hello, I am new to contaminated fuel but now can’t get to know enough about it. I fill up at the same station with diesel 98% of the time (unless I am out of the area). My 3 yr old Terrano just out of warrenty has been diagnosed with the need to replace the fuel pump and injectors. The Nissan mechanic asked where I purchased my fuel from as it was not clean and had a funny smell to it…. like white spirit??? So the car went in and in the meantime I bought a 3 yr old Jaguar estate 2.0 diesel. The test drive was great and I drove it around for the afternoon and great. I filled up at my normal service station (one week after my Terrano) and guess what happened…. that same evening I had a fuel problem. It went back to the dealer who referred it to Jaguar who have today said they believe it is contaminated fuel…. I am so unhappy, completely skint and just don’t know what to do next. It is a Shell service station and I have my receipts and Jag are keeping a sample of the diesel but is it possible to argue with such a huge company???
I purchased petrol from the Annick filling station at Dreghorn on 2 November. within half an hour my car broke down. To cut a long story short, petrol tank had to be replaced and fuel lines had to be cleaned out as the petrol was very badly contaminated. BP nor owner of the petrol station are willing to accept responsibility as they have not received any other complaints. Incidentally, petrol station was undergoing refurbishment, ie new pumps etc. I am looking for any unlucky people to contact me.
We filled our Lorry with diesel from a garage in Northl eicester and experienced major problems with 2 breakdowns. On inspection the fuel has a sooty type sedemnent in it. Once drained and replaced with new fuel everything was fine. Anyone else experienced similar problems around the end of October?