According to the News, it is rife up and down the country.
Anyone been affected by dodgy fuel?
According to the News, it is rife up and down the country.
Nope - mind you I drive a diesel
It would appear that so far only BP ultimate is guaranteed as unaffected.
Makes you wonder who started the scare then dosn't it?
It would appear that a ship carrying ethanol did not clean the tanks out before carrying petrol.
The extra ethanol has been damaging lambda sensors. Apparently there is going to be a shortage of those too !!!
Guy at work claims to have had a tankful of dodgy fuel.
SWMBO pooped her self when I told her, as she had just filled up at Tesco. Thankfully it doesn't seem to be bad round here as yet.
i was listening on the radio, suddenly though, my lil ax started misfiring worse last week, but that was filled at an asda. Theres deffo no lambda
sensor to break! 
I was driving up the A1 in the A2 last week and had an emmision warning light come on and had to pull over. Audi said that the computer was reading a
misfire.
It could be linked.
Yes, I've had it
Symptoms: feels like driving with the handbrake slightly on, i.e. for any given speed, have to accelerate more and/or be in a lower gear.
Latest: going along the motorway with a steady throttle pedal, it will suddenly slow down a bit (say 5mph) for 5-20 seconds, then speed back up again.
I usually use Tesco as it's down the road. Now, I'm not sure what to do - fill up with a tank from Sainsbury and drive it for a while to see
if it clears, or let the garage investigate at £££ per hour. Thoughts?
http://www.locostbuilders.co.uk/viewthread.php?tid=61283
Surely there is a liability from the suppliers for the repairs after this?
Don't they have some rule about goods being "fit for purpose" and "of merchantable quality"????
"Now, I'm not sure what to do - fill up with a tank from Sainsbury and drive it for a while to see if it clears, or let the garage
investigate at £££ per hour. Thoughts? "
Unfortunately, if it's caused by a lambda sensor coated by contaminated fuel (same as if you put leaded in) it won't get better. Your best
bet is to ask a decent independant garage to do a diagnostic code read on it (should cost around £40-50)to give an indication of the cause. There is a
liability on the fuel supplier, keep evidence of purchase & repairs (if they are fuel related). At present both Tesco & Morrisons are saying
their fuel has been checked & is ok.
On three or four occaisions in the past I have bought fuel questionable of questionable quality from Sainsbury in the past, earlier this week the
Rover was badly down on power after a half tank from Morrisions.
As for burning out Lambda sensors Lambda sensor elements are pretty tough and ethanol burns a lot cooler the petrol. I suspect what is really
happening is that garages have been changing lambda sensor in a effort to track down the problem.
Lead contamination of lambda sensors is entirely different lead additives were design to leave a deposit on engine internal surfaces, all that ethanol
produces on combustion is CO2 and H2O.
The main effect of ethanol would be to weaken the mixture.
One guy on TV this morning was charged over £1000 for 2 sensors to be swapped. It sounds like a major rip off to me. Perhaps garrages have been
changing sensors as a revenue generating measure.
I thought that most engines were able to run on a petrol ethanol mix? Certainly on a mix that you could call "contamination"
quote:
Originally posted by nitram38
It would appear that so far only BP ultimate is guaranteed as unaffected.
linky
hmmm, filled up to the brim at Tescos yesterday, got home and back into work ok, fingers crossed eh?
Apparenently (according to news at 10) lambda sensors are being destroyed.
Quentin Wilson said that you are covered by the sale of goods act for the fuel and any damage to your car, but if you have any out of pocket expenses
e.g. you have to use a taxi to get to work, then if the garage does not cough up, it will mean you taking them through the county court.
He also warned of a lambda shortage caused by this problem.
It would also appear that most garages are affected except BP ultimate.
From the BBC - sounds like some frantic bottom covering to me.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/6406801.stm
quote:
Independent oil company Greenergy said tests on the fuel it supplied to Tesco and Morrisons showed it met industry standards.
A spokeswoman said the fuel contained up to 5% bio-ethanol, which was within permitted limits, and investigations were continuing.
Trading standards said its officials were also testing a number of samples but had not yet had the results.
quote:
The penalty for supplying fuel which does not meet industry standards is a £5,000 fine.
If anybody needs a new Lambda sensor, these are quite a good price
There is an article on the FT website today that, in effect, says it does not matter how much ethanol is in petrol as it would not do any lasting
damage to the lambda sensor. They say the problem is more likly to sand or water.
IIRC the potential issues with ethanol are old hoses and seals that it may attack if they are not made of suitable material.
Myself, I can't see that water would cause lasting damage either.
I've have thought that sand would damage many things, if not filtered out, before attacking the lambda sensor.
good old carb engines
There seemed to be a lot of broken down cars on the m3 on my way to Portsmouth this morning at one point there was one on each side of the motorway
opposite each other.
Seems strange that the supermarkets are claming its nothing to do with fuel mmm!
quote:
Originally posted by westcost1
There seemed to be a lot of broken down cars on the m3 on my way to Portsmouth this morning at one point there was one on each side of the motorway opposite each other.
Seems strange that the supermarkets are claming its nothing to do with fuel mmm!
They are saying traces of silicon have been found in some of the tests.
this may just be a coincidence but i filled up with diesel at tesco this morning and on the way to work the fuel filter warning light, fuel level warning light and battery warning light came on and the heater stopped working! also there is a slight loss in power. still the same after the journey home as well.
The newsreaders need to get some chemistry lessons - the AA's scientist was saying that there seemed to be an excess of silicone in the
fuel, but the newsreader kept talking about silicon. Ever so slightly different substances...
Any road up, the AA man said that the excess of silicone was being burnt and was turning into silicon dioxide (I think that's what he said) and
that was coating the oxygen sensors.
But it may be male bovine droppings, of course.
I put a third of a tank of tesco 99 in my subaru last friday morning before a track day so was pretty dilute. I was only there for the afternoon
session and by the end of it it was misfiring, loosing boost and wouldn't idle well. Took it home and filled up with BP and reset the ecu and it
was fine.
I did clean the maf and the icv while I was under the bonnet because I had stored (ie old) maf and fuel pump errors.
Seems ok now, runs fine and no more errors.
Mark
So basically is any high ron fuel ok ?
I'll go to BP if the supermarkets are out of bounds.
News at 10 said that BP Ultimate is ok, which is lucky because that is what I fill my F1-2 car up with!
Is anyone but me a bit cynical about the spread of this beyond the original area? TV news keep coming up with the odd viewer that's broken down in Newcastle or somewhere, that by some amazing coincidence has put petrol in their car in the last month. Must be the contaminated petrol causing that then. What's the betting that at least one eeeedjit tries to claim off a petrol station for something stupid like a dead battery or a puncture?