'contaminated' fuel

AtreuS · 1 Mar 2007 at 09:34

Latest news on the BBC say that even samples taken from so called "effected cars" have tested as fine. Tescos says thats so far they have found no evidence of anything wrong at all.

Trading standards will have some results on friday apparently. Ive still got half a tank and its running fine so ill skip filling up for now, a £200 repair bill is not what i want right now.

Lashout_UK · 1 Mar 2007 at 09:49

All petrol is allowed to have a 5% Ethanol content, which is managable in all cars - what's not clear is wether

a) everyone has filled up from marked E85 pumps just because it's cheap or,

b) the suppliers, who promote E85 as well, have filled up regular pumps with it.

Third Opinion · 1 Mar 2007 at 09:50

I have just been offered a slot on the BBC 1 o'clock news after posting on the HYS website. Unfortunately I have an appointment about then.

Lashout_UK · 1 Mar 2007 at 09:54

Of course, that's assuming it is E85 that's causing the problem (just thought I'd add that)

mysticsniper · 1 Mar 2007 at 10:04

I'm quite relieved that I have stopped using the supermarket fuels, and gone back to using BP & Esso. My car feels to run better when I use those instead of the cheapo fuel from supermarkets.

chief barker · 1 Mar 2007 at 10:21

Murco is affected also, my peugeot 307 is in the garage as I type with a faulty LAMBA sensor.

I only ever buy petrol from that station, and have receipts to prove it. I have logged my complaint with the owner of the station, he said I was the first to complain, but I have read on several websites that Murco are affected too, as they get their fuel from the same company in essex that also supplies tesco, sainsburys etc.

jackoh · 1 Mar 2007 at 10:25

I only used tescos to top up my old car, picked up my new one at the weekend (new to me

) and just happened to use Shell and Esso since i bought it. There is a god

Third Opinion · 1 Mar 2007 at 10:33

I would like a list of retailers that are not effected to be honest. I need to fill the Merc up later and I am not going to use any of these supermarkets again.

chief barker · 1 Mar 2007 at 10:39

Third Opinion said:
I would like a list of retailers that are not effected to be honest. I need to fill the Merc up later and I am not going to use any of these supermarkets again.

Shell,BP and Esso are not affected. From what I have read.

Bill101 · 1 Mar 2007 at 10:39

AtreuS said:
Latest news on the BBC say that even samples taken from so called "effected cars" have tested as fine. Tescos says thats so far they have found no evidence of anything wrong at all.

Trading standards will have some results on friday apparently. Ive still got half a tank and its running fine so ill skip filling up for now, a £200 repair bill is not what i want right now.

I'm putting it all down to mass hysteria and garages out to make a quick buck.

merlin · 1 Mar 2007 at 10:41

Cat pee fuel, never touched it, never will.

stoofa · 1 Mar 2007 at 11:18

Bill101 said:
I'm putting it all down to mass hysteria and garages out to make a quick buck.

I'm sorry - what part of all this are you putting down to "mass hysteria"?
Because I'd love to know the odds behind all these cars suffering the same fault, basically a failed sensor all at the same time (well over a week).
Add in the fact that people have been contacting news agencies over the last week and it wasn't until yesterday that this made it to press...

digitalwolf · 1 Mar 2007 at 11:39

Does this mean there will be a major shortage of V Power? uentin Wilson told viewers of ITV News last night to stick to BP Ultimate/V Power for the time being.

Zip · 1 Mar 2007 at 12:21

-westy- said:
I couldn't care less where I fill up, I don't have a cat

/strokes old car

Old cars dont like Ethonal, Something to do with eating away at something in them

Lashout_UK · 1 Mar 2007 at 12:41

Same for modern cars as well! The long term effect of how corrosive it is on seals and lines are not yet known though, a fair few people run it on appropriately mapped cars and have suffered no issues......Yet........

lookitsjonno · 1 Mar 2007 at 12:55

chief barker said:
Murco is affected also, my peugeot 307 is in the garage as I type with a faulty LAMBA sensor.

thats because it's french, not because of the fuel

dirtydog · 1 Mar 2007 at 12:59

Lashout_UK said:
Same for modern cars as well! The long term effect of how corrosive it is on seals and lines are not yet known though, a fair few people run it on appropriately mapped cars and have suffered no issues......Yet........

Indeed. It is hard to believe that it is legal to sell a fuel which contains a substance known to be damaging to fuel lines etc. on 'older' cars. You have to wonder how it might accelerate the wear of fuel lines on newer cars as well. I can't see that anyone in their right mind would use that stuff, especially when it is only pennies cheaper than the quality stuff from Shell or BP.

Berger · 1 Mar 2007 at 13:05

Bill101 said:
I'm putting it all down to mass hysteria and garages out to make a quick buck.

Im with you on this, would have thought only a couple of pumps have been filled with the incorrect fuel at one site, and now suddenly everyone whose car has a problem is jumping on the bandwagon and blaming it.

Not fussed mines sitting in Coventry waiting for a radiator and has 1/2 a tank of V-Power in it from a week ago.

Malt_Vinegar · 1 Mar 2007 at 14:06

My bm cut out on me the other day. The first garage said it was an O2 sensor fault.

It has since turned out that 2 parts of the fuel system that the BMW specialist mechanic has never seen broken before have died.

Co-incidence?? (Yes, i have used tesco fuel, along with other brands too)

Dogbreath · 1 Mar 2007 at 14:42

dirtydog said:
I can't see that anyone in their right mind would use that stuff, especially when it is only pennies cheaper than the quality stuff from Shell or BP.

Not the point really, it's a fuel that is supposed to be helping to reduce dependancy on fossil fuel consumption for transport (though in practice it's unlikely that ethanol production will ever provide enough fuel for current demands IMO). It also has other advatanges over petrol such as improved performance, though the flip side is that fuel consumption is considerably increased.