Since the uncertainty of fuel supplies, I have been keeping my petrol tank full, topping up when I get to about the ¾ mark.
I have a hybrid Toyota Prius, which just sips petrol. I have only had to top up the tank three times this year. The last time was 12 April.
Yesterday, on the run back from our weekly shopping trip, the car began to judder and rattle. The only way I can describe it was like running over a cattle grid.
This was only happening when the petrol engine was running.
When I got home, I lifted the bonnet to see if anything obvious had worked loose. I couldn’t see anything, but the smell under the bonnet was horrendous, like rotten eggs.
I contacted the Toyota dealer and my car was collected this morning. A guy from Toyota telephoned me up and told me they had had a quick inspection and the problem was due to mis-filling.
The problem was the quality of fuel in the tank.
I have had this car since it was new and I can vouch 100% that every drop of fuel that has gone into that tank was bought at Morrison’s in Jarrow.
I am now facing a bill to have my tank drained and of course losing all the petrol in the tank.
I know it is useless contacting Morrison’s, because I cannot prove that they were my only providers, but I know they were.
I can only assume that the dodgy batch was bought on the 12 April, and when I asked the garage guy why the fuel had only now start to give me trouble, he said that perhaps it was floating in a layer and I had used the petrol under it and was now into the bad stuff.
I was an engineer and understand about density layers, so the theory does make sense.
But I would love to know if anyone bought petrol from Morrison’s on 12 April and are having any ignition problems.
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