Apparently there is a problem with contaminated petrol?????????

[VeniVidiVickiQV]

Anyone know anything about it?

I can't seem to pinpoint it, only that it's in the south-east.
people have had cars packing up, juddering and just generally not being quite right after purchasing petrol from tesco or morrisons.

I got some yesterday from tescos but so far haven't had any probs

news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/6405051.stm

Read a BBC news article on this earlier. I don't think full details of which type and which area is affected has been published yet.

Yes saw this on the news tonight. About people complaining about Tesco petrol stopping their cars.

I noticed it because I had the AA this weekend about my car which has stopped.

However circs were not as drastic as those mentioned on TV. Just ended up with new battery. I am garage/supermarket tart (wherever I am passing is good enough)

Well i got petrol from the local Shell in Portsmouth this afternoon, then later on as i was taking my charges to an afterschool activity, my car suddenly started reving up on it's own . Luckily we were stationary, so i had brake on, but what if we had been moving.......

BTW I was warned about 'supermarket petrol' years ago by a mechanic. He told me Shell's super product at the time would get me 10% more mileage. It didn't but I had to have the air mass meter (formally known as th carburetor sp? ) changed at the cost of approx £400 on my Golf to stop the juddering.

funny you should say that suew, because a friend of dh's reckons certain types of petrol make her go further, so to speak.
i never believed it, but maybe it's true

thank goodness I didn't fill up at tescos the other day, I waited till I got to my friends house and filled up at a garage near her. We are in the affected area too...

ah, thank you folks.

I should be okay then......

According to dh, branded petrol has additives in it which help keep the engine clean. A clean engine uses fuel more efficiently hence you should see better fuel consumption figures though if you've been running on supermarket fuel it may take more than one tank of Shell/BP before you see an improvement. Also, Honest John recommends it so that's good enough for me.

I heard about this .. sis told me about it at dinnertime, but i haven't been near a tesco or morrison's petrol station.
SueW, i had juddering and had to have my air mass meter changed too, along with throttle cleaning and it came to £370 (the bulk of it is labour!!)

Was reading about this earlier. It may not be 'contaminated' as such because they are allowed to put a certain amount of ethanol in it anyway. The thinking is that the wrong percentage of ethanol may have been put in or that it may not have been mixed correctly so that the engine suddenly gets a dose of pure ethanol which it can't cope with. The other idea is that cleaning agents may have got into the fuel. One man had to pay £300 to have his car fixed and it isn't covered by warranties.

Apparently french cars are the worst affected. Guess who's just bought a Renault?

anyone have any idea of where is "safe" to fill up at the moment then? Still got half a tank, but dont want to go and fill up at sainsbo's like usual incase i wreck my "new" (second hand but to me is new!) car!

i started a thread about this yesterday, my car is juddery and i always use tesco. i'd use any main supplier other than supermarkets now

I am with suedonim always buy branded fuel to keep the engine sweet

smug emoticon