Water in Diesel Problem - Advice Please

tanka006

Hello To all,

Just purchased a new Opel Insignia. Went to put in my first purchased fill of Diesel. Within 10 seconds of starting the car the warning "Water in Fuel - contact Service" came on.

Contacted the main dealer & he said come down & they will drain the water.

Did so this morning & was shown a problem - they showed me a sample of the diesel from my tank - it was yellow & totally "cloudy" i.e. you could not see through the yellow musky / cloudy liquid.

They then showed me a sample from their tank which was totally different.

The dealer thinks that I may have "washed" diesel & I need to empty the tank, flush the fuel lines & change the fuel filter.

Naturally this is going to cost a lot of money.

I called to the filling station where I purchased the diesel & explained the situation to the manager / owner.

He swears that he has all of his fuel tested weeky & that his is fine. I explained that I had never purchased fuel anywhere else for this car.

All he suggested was that I leave a sample with him & he will have it tested & I can also get a sample independently tested.

However, to have a sample tested I am informed is between €180 & €250 plus VAT.

Any suggestions as to what to do from here?

Thanks for any inputs

Best Regards
Tanka

I Was VB

Water in Diesel is normal, in so far it happens on cars when the Diesel filter hasnt been changed in a while, i change mine ever 20K Klms and i've never had a issue. I'd change the filter drain the tank and go from there.

Bandara

tanka006 wrote: »

Hello To all,

Just purchased a new Opel Insignia. Went to put in my first purchased fill of Diesel. Within 10 seconds of starting the car the warning "Water in Fuel - contact Service" came on.

Contacted the main dealer & he said come down & they will drain the water.

Did so this morning & was shown a problem - they showed me a sample of the diesel from my tank - it was yellow & totally "cloudy" i.e. you could not see through the yellow musky / cloudy liquid.

They then showed me a sample from their tank which was totally different.

The dealer thinks that I may have "washed" diesel & I need to empty the tank, flush the fuel lines & change the fuel filter.

Naturally this is going to cost a lot of money.

I called to the filling station where I purchased the diesel & explained the situation to the manager / owner.

He swears that he has all of his fuel tested weeky & that his is fine. I explained that I had never purchased fuel anywhere else for this car.

All he suggested was that I leave a sample with him & he will have it tested & I can also get a sample independently tested.

However, to have a sample tested I am informed is between €180 & €250 plus VAT.

Any suggestions as to what to do from here?

Thanks for any inputs

Best Regards
Tanka

Hi

The procedure the station owner is advising is standard practice, mechanics and car garages ALWAYS blame anything like this to 'dirty diesel', 'washed diesel' etc etc etc

However the station owner is lying about his fuel being checked every week, its simply not necessary or even accurately possible to do this.

The proposal of getting the fuel checked is fair, the way it is done should be that you pay for the test, its carried out by an independent lab, if the test comes back that the service station is not at fault then you are left responsible for the bill, and if it comes back that the station is at fault they pay for the bill, and for everything required to get your car repaired/replaced etc.

What you should do is ask the car dealer to put down in balck and white that the cause of the fuel issues is definitely as a result of the fuel being either washed/contaminated/dirty, in 7 years in business I have never ever had any mechanic or garage prepared to actually back up their very quickly made statement.

Seeing as your not long since you bought the fuel its quite easily checked from the service station point of view, you get a clear bottle, dispense a liter or 2 into it and simply look at it. It should be pretty much crystal clear, even if they got a delivery in the mean time it wont dilute it enough to render it clean. The evidence will still be there.

As a general rule, once you get the fuel from a big brand outfit Topaz etc etc its very very very highly unlikely that there is a contamination. If its from one of these credit card only 'discount fuel' places then its highly likely that it is contaminated.

If you want to pm the station name and location I'll pretty much be able to make a strong enough call on the likelyhood of bad fuel.

Just from experience I think you'll find your car dealer is kicking you to touch.

good luck with it.

HT

R.O.R

I haven't heard of the Insignia flashing the "water in the diesel" warning for a while, but it was happening quite frequently in 2009 (code 53 or somewhere around there I think).

Pretty sure we just sent the cars in to Opel for a software reset or upgrade - pretty sure we never had to drain tanks.

I suppose it's always possible that there is water in the diesel, but because I know it's happened frequently with these cars, I'd say it's more likely just a glitch in the matrix.

TouchingVirus

R.O.R wrote: »

I haven't heard of the Insignia flashing the "water in the diesel" warning for a while, but it was happening quite frequently in 2009 (code 53 or somewhere around there I think).

Pretty sure we just sent the cars in to Opel for a software reset or upgrade - pretty sure we never had to drain tanks.

I suppose it's always possible that there is water in the diesel, but because I know it's happened frequently with these cars, I'd say it's more likely just a glitch in the matrix.

Doesn't explain the cloudy diesel though...

tanka006

Guys,

Many thanks for all of your replies.

I went back to the main dealer to collect the car yesterday evening. They informed me that the owner of the filling station had already been in with them to collect a sample of the diesel.

I called to visit him on my way home. He informed me that he had another couple of complaints that day - from VW & Toyota drivers concerning the fuel. He had shut down some of his pumps & had taken samples from his tanks & had sent them off to Belfast for testing.

I gave him copies of my repair bill & my fuel bill & told him that I did not want to cause any hassle - I just did not want to be out of pocket for the dumped fuel or the repair costs.

He seemed to be understanding.

FYI the main dealer wrote the following on my bill

"Check car for warning light on dash: Water in Fuel
Drain fuel tank, remove contaminated diesel fuel & clean fuel tank. Replace new fuel filter. Blow out flow lines. Fill car with €20.00 of clean diesel. Road test car.
Note: Injector pump & injectors not removed or checked"

I will give time for the results to come back via filling station & then report back.

I also have my own sample of the diesel - which to be clear is a tellow cloudy colour - you cannot see through the bottle at all - it's so much cloudy.

Thanks Again

Tanka

MugMugs

Hammertime wrote: »

Hi
Seeing as your not long since you bought the fuel its quite easily checked from the service station point of view, you get a clear bottle, dispense a liter or 2 into it and simply look at it. It should be pretty much crystal clear, even if they got a delivery in the mean time it wont dilute it enough to render it clean. The evidence will still be there.

Eh, White Diesel isnt actually "White"

I've seen it with green, orange and even yellow twinges... but it's still "white"