Bad Petrol from Petrol Stations - Yeah Right

[MrB]

Take it easy Bigp, you'll be getting the boat owners who also own planes on next, telling us how aviation fuel ages with time.

One of the first things you check in preflight is if there is water in the tanks.

 

[Assassin]

So many factors involved that there is no definite answer.

Garages use two types of storage tanks and these are the older steel types OR the newer plastic/composite type and this is crucial, tanks are installed and stay underground for decades and this is the first issue, steel tanks rust internally and externally as older types were placed in the ground and covered by clays or denser soils and this means they are sat in constant moisture, older steel tanks were riveted and newer ones are welded, riveted ones corrode around the joints and let water in and they all corrode internally and drop this crud into the fuel along with anything else which is introduced.

Tank breathers are the next issue, older types were open to the atmosphere and newer types are pressure differential operated to let air into, or out of the tank as required and when there is no pressure differential they close to reduce emissions, open types get all manner if insects and airborne debris into them as well as moist air during wetter periods, and in the hotter months this is fine silt like material which collects and sits at the bottom of the tanks, so fine debris and moisture accumulate in the tanks.

Cleaning is crucial and in many cases the tanks are never cleaned due to the cost and this debris accumulation simply builds up over time and it is pumped into the vehicles fuel tanks as they fill up, and due to more recent introductions to HSE legislation this cost rose many fold overnight and with margins so tight many operators cannot afford to do it and didn't.

Therefore you could end up with a site which has been developed and branded in the operators livery and looks very nice, but due to the expense, they leave the old tanks in which may be 50 years old and full of crap, they let a tank run low and it is sucking up mainly water and crap and you get issues with many vehicles filling from that tank and your insurers get hit with a big bill as retailers put more emphasis on visuals and branding than they do on tanks and pipework.

 

[Bigplumbs]

So many factors involved that there is no definite answer.

Garages use two types of storage tanks and these are the older steel types OR the newer plastic/composite type and this is crucial, tanks are installed and stay underground for decades and this is the first issue, steel tanks rust internally and externally as older types were placed in the ground and covered by clays or denser soils and this means they are sat in constant moisture, older steel tanks were riveted and newer ones are welded, riveted ones corrode around the joints and let water in and they all corrode internally and drop this crud into the fuel along with anything else which is introduced.

Tank breathers are the next issue, older types were open to the atmosphere and newer types are pressure differential operated to let air into, or out of the tank as required and when there is no pressure differential they close to reduce emissions, open types get all manner if insects and airborne debris into them as well as moist air during wetter periods, and in the hotter months this is fine silt like material which collects and sits at the bottom of the tanks, so fine debris and moisture accumulate in the tanks.

Cleaning is crucial and in many cases the tanks are never cleaned due to the cost and this debris accumulation simply builds up over time and it is pumped into the vehicles fuel tanks as they fill up, and due to more recent introductions to HSE legislation this cost rose many fold overnight and with margins so tight many operators cannot afford to do it and didn't.

Therefore you could end up with a site which has been developed and branded in the operators livery and looks very nice, but due to the expense, they leave the old tanks in which may be 50 years old and full of crap, they let a tank run low and it is sucking up mainly water and crap and you get issues with many vehicles filling from that tank and your insurers get hit with a big bill as retailers put more emphasis on visuals and branding than they do on tanks and pipework.

You paint a very black picture which simply cannot be true or we would see more vehicles broken down at the roads side. Your account is not bourn out by reality

 

[lynallbel]

Our last boat was petrol and for 6.5 yrs was only ever filled up from jerry cans.
I had a look in the tank once and its was totally spotless.

 

[stelican]

Assassin
You point about water in tanks could be correct but it is a mythe about tanks getting low and there fore the water getting sucked out. The pick up point position in the tank does not change so it alway picks up from the same depth just like your boat

 

[julians]

So many factors involved that there is no definite answer.

Garages use two types of storage tanks and these are the older steel types OR the newer plastic/composite type and this is crucial, tanks are installed and stay underground for decades and this is the first issue, steel tanks rust internally and externally as older types were placed in the ground and covered by clays or denser soils and this means they are sat in constant moisture, older steel tanks were riveted and newer ones are welded, riveted ones corrode around the joints and let water in and they all corrode internally and drop this crud into the fuel along with anything else which is introduced.

Tank breathers are the next issue, older types were open to the atmosphere and newer types are pressure differential operated to let air into, or out of the tank as required and when there is no pressure differential they close to reduce emissions, open types get all manner if insects and airborne debris into them as well as moist air during wetter periods, and in the hotter months this is fine silt like material which collects and sits at the bottom of the tanks, so fine debris and moisture accumulate in the tanks.

Cleaning is crucial and in many cases the tanks are never cleaned due to the cost and this debris accumulation simply builds up over time and it is pumped into the vehicles fuel tanks as they fill up, and due to more recent introductions to HSE legislation this cost rose many fold overnight and with margins so tight many operators cannot afford to do it and didn't.

Therefore you could end up with a site which has been developed and branded in the operators livery and looks very nice, but due to the expense, they leave the old tanks in which may be 50 years old and full of crap, they let a tank run low and it is sucking up mainly water and crap and you get issues with many vehicles filling from that tank and your insurers get hit with a big bill as retailers put more emphasis on visuals and branding than they do on tanks and pipework.

Yep, that's exactly what happened when we filled up from a Texaco petrol station. Like I say I had to take them to small claims court to get them to pay for the damage the petrol station had caused.

 

[Sailorsam101]

There was a case a few years ago where something went wrong with petrol supply for a few garages and thousands or drivers were left with broken cars.

What ever they did turned out that it destroyed O2 sensors on thousands of cars....somebody had a big bill to pay top get it fixed. it was all over the press at the time.

 

[mlines]

Perhaps I am being a little thick but was that Video taken in 2013 so the petrol was 2 yeas old or was that video taken recently ?

Taken at the end of 2017

 

[Croftie]

There was a case a few years ago where something went wrong with petrol supply for a few garages and thousands or drivers were left with broken cars.

What ever they did turned out that it destroyed O2 sensors on thousands of cars....somebody had a big bill to pay top get it fixed. it was all over the press at the time.

IIRC it was Tesco petrol that had traces of silicone in it that coated the O2 sensors.

 

[Firefly625]

Well I do own a petrol station so have a little experience of this. We are a Shell retailer and we do indeed supply McLaren... & fortunately we also supply the general public quite a bit of fuel as we are located on the A320 between J11 M25 and Woking... we sell circa 9m litres of fuel a year, we have around 1200 motorists visit our site every day. So turnover is important, two reasons, firstly if you don't turn over a lot of fuel you make no money and may as well pack up, there isn't big margins in selling fuel! and secondly for steady deliveries and fresh fuel.

The most common cause for issues in fuel from garages is lack of proceedures and maintenance. So issues arise for a number of reasons;

When tanks are allowed to run low. We have a minimum limit of 2000 liters per tank, when it gets down to that level we shut the tank down, very rarely happens as we get one of two fuel deliveries everyday (and we have 6 tanks). Like any tank the bottom dregs will contain any contaminates which may be in the tank. Have a poorly run site and the operators will not be monitoring this and allow pumps to draw from the bottom of the tank.

We also have regular filter changes on all our fuel pumps, even more so when winter diesel comes out (which will be in the next week or so). Costs money but for us we don't want to be serving our customers fuel with any particles.. again a poorly operated site will not want to be undertaking this routine maintenance.

We also subscribe to off site fuel monitoring so we know precisely the quantities of fuel delivered by each individual pump from each tank, and run back, and if any pump is delivering to little or too much fuel and requires calibration.

Also where we get our fuel makes a difference, we used to get deliveries from Coryton and it was delivered hot, and this caused two issues, firstly shrinkage that effected our margins and secondly condensation which produced water. Depending where fuel stations get their fuel from may also give rise to more issues, and there's not a lot you can do about that..

So some talk of old tanks.. well the legistlation controlling the storage of fuel is pretty rigorous, tanks after a certain age can be rejuvenated with a few processes, basically a relining process or they can be replaced, that costs a lot of money. We have 6 tanks, some newer than others, two are being relined next year as they reach an age where it is required to retain our licence to store fuel. With 4 grades of fuel every site has multiple tanks and its one of the most expensive aspects of maintenance.

All these practises we put in place as that's how you need to operate a business and sleep well at night, we are one of the largest privately owned and operated Shell retailers in the UK and we know that many sites are not operated in the same way.

However the fact is you gotta be pretty unlucky to get a tank of "Bad fuel"... So how or why are these issues being reported and gain weight... Well one way is by pride; probably once a month we get a customer complaining they had bad fuel, that their car has broken down due to the fuel we supplied, or its running very badly.. and these people are often very cross. So on every occasion we check back on CCTV or via payment method and receipts and 100% of the time we see that they have actually miss fuelled... red faces and apologies all round... but when that customer chats to his friends who are keen for an update on what happened… do they admit it was their own fault, or do they maintain that they got some "bad fuel"....

 

[BruceK]

Oh ya. Definitely. That time I put petrol in my diesel Landy was definitely a case of bad fuel. Petrol makes for lousy diesel. I can attest to that.

 

[MapisM]

I filled up the W12 600 Hp Bentley last week south of Turin at a autosrada filling station all they had was 95 , I’d filled up with 95 previously in Antibes and within a hour decending ( mostly on the brakes so a lot of closed throttle= overfueling ?? ) the St Bernadino pass the CEL came on .

Blimey PF, you went from S of Turin up to St.Bernardino pass (i.e. 300Km or so, with the last 20 in a pretty steep climb), the warning only came on while going down after the pass, and you blame IT petrol?
Besides, all in ONE hour? You must have used all of those 600hp and maybe an afterburner too, I reckon...

 

[Freebee]

The other problem with poorly maintained storage tanks that have a water bottom is that the ethanol in modern petrol likes water and will be absorbed into any water at the bottom of the tank.

This causes the delivered fuels octane value to be lowered as the ethanol has effectively been removed....... hence poorer performance.

 

[Portofino]

Blimey PF, you went from S of Turin up to St.Bernardino pass (i.e. 300Km or so, with the last 20 in a pretty steep climb), the warning only came on while going down after the pass, and you blame IT petrol?
Besides, all in ONE hour? You must have used all of those 600hp and maybe an afterburner too, I reckon...

Nah it’way less than 300 km Torino -St Bernardino .
We had stopped on the Swiss side at a shop before topping up .So I was not a rest as such .
Once 1/2 filled with 98 it went off within 10 meters before I got off the forcourt .
Any how saved a 300 CH / hr dealer visit to investigate.

Tbo temping as it is we tend to stick to the speed limits mostly

 

[jrudge]

I repossessed a filling station once.

Next thing the fire brigade were on the phone. We had ( I think) 7 days to either start selling petrol, physically remove the tanks ( not a simple job!) or fill them with water to remove the risk of explosion.

I dont actually recall which option we took in the end.

We lost a fortune. The industry had ( prob still does) a financing program called load over load. The fuel in the tanks is in essence owned by the oil company and you pay them for the next one. The prior manager did not quite follow this and as such 90% of our security ( the fuel in the tanks) was worth precisely nothing ... the tanks were empty by that time anyway and the chap had given all his assets to his wife.

So that is one way to get water in the tanks I suppose!

 

[penberth3]

You paint a very black picture which simply cannot be true or we would see more vehicles broken down at the roads side. Your account is not bourn out by reality

Yes, and there must be filters in the pumps - to protect the meter mechanism if nothing else.

 

[MapisM]

Nah it’way less than 300 km Torino -St Bernardino

Aren't you meaning Little St Bernard, maybe?
San Bernardino is the pass between Bellinzona and Splügen, with Milan in between, if you're coming from Turin...

 

[Portofino]

Aren't you meaning Little St Bernard, maybe?
San Bernardino is the pass between Bellinzona and Splügen, with Milan in between, if you're coming from Turin...

The one with the chuffing dog museum and about 7 dogs still there .
Great St Bernard , but on the IT side you sign it “ Bernardo “ Ok slight spelling but near enough ? Well for me
Links Valais to Torino

 

[MapisM]

Great St Bernard , but on the IT side you sign it “ Bernardo “ Ok slight spelling but near enough ? Well for me
Links Valais to Torino

Aha, ok.
I guessed you were speaking of the Little S.B. just because "...ino" in IT is used as a diminutive, hence the frequent confusion between Bernardino and Little St Bernard, which are actually very far each other (and the first is not a border pass btw, being entirely in Canton of Grisons).
[/OT]

 

[lenten]

i have had bad petrol twice---once from a small country garage----as i was filling up the pump stopped and they had run out of fuel----i got 1/4 mile before i ground to a halt-----also i filled up completely from a smart modern garage in surrey----got 5 miles down the motorway and stopped----luckily i had onward journey cover from the rac-----they towed to where i was going------the isle of mull-----not wanting to waste a full tank of petrol i siphoned it out and filtered it back in----the problem was loads of tiny fawn coloured discs of what??