Petrol "stretching"

PoorSickAudi

Hi,

I'm only new here but i've become a victim of suspected fuel stretching. I drive a 2012 audi a1. Originally from mayo but haven't been home in a long time and currently living in dublin.

In the last month I have only filled up in 3 garages in Dublin. All big well know brands and supposed to be reputable. 2 of the garages are the same brand but in south and north dublin.

On the 28th of October i got petrol in south dublin and on the 29th while driving up the m50 to north dublin my car started shaking violently and 2 warning lights came on. The car wouldn't go over 80kph. When i stopped and turned the car on and off the lights went off but the car didn't feel 100%.

Being a woman who knows nothing about the engine i didn't drive it on the thursday hoping it would go away. It done this 3 more times on the friday and starting to get worried i booked it in for diagnostics on tuesday of last week and didn't drive it all weekend.

I do a lot of travelling daily all over dublin so i need my car. On monday of last week (3rd of November) I attempted to drive the car again. And again driving down the m50 the car started shaking violently and 3 warning lights came on and i couldn't get into 4th or 5th gear.

Managed to just about get the car to an audi dealer. They said it might be spark plugs, engine coils etc. but when they replaced them they said the cylinders were still misfiring.

Anyways to cut a long story short(ish) they took my engine apart and found 2 of the pistons had their rings melted onto them and the other 2 were starting to do the same and they had a lot of carbon build up.

Basically my engine is banjaxed and I need a total engine rebuild at a lovely price of €7,300! Yes €7,300!!! My car is my pride and joy and i always looked after it well. So this has devastated me. Yes i am that sad that i treat my car like my child.

I'm waiting on lab results to come back to confirm fuel stretching and my insurance will cover it if it does otherwise i'm left with the bill and not knowing how an engine melted on a 2 year old car. I have seen the damage to the pistons and it's fairly significant.

So just letting people know that even some of the big trusted names may not be as trustworthy as we think.

No idea when i'll get my car back. Long process to go through with labs, dealer and insurance. I think i have pinpointed where I got the bad petrol because all the other cars in the house use 1 of the garages i've been to and nothing has happened their cars. Also the garage said it was likely the fill on the 28th that did it.

Sorry for the long post. Just wanted to let people know it's not just in Mayo and the midlands.

Regards,
PoorSickAudi

Special Circumstances

Sorry to hear that PoorSickAudi, fingers crossed on the insurance. Please keep us up to date. This thread lost its way for a while, but it would be good to add current info on when and where confirmed cases crop up.

Harold Finchs Machine

PoorSickAudi wrote: »

Basically my engine is banjaxed and I need a total engine rebuild at a lovely price of €7,300! Yes €7,300!!! My car is my pride and joy and i always looked after it well. So this has devastated me. Yes i am that sad that i treat my car like my child.

I'm waiting on lab results to come back to confirm fuel stretching and my insurance will cover it if it does otherwise i'm left with the bill and not knowing how an engine melted on a 2 year old car.

Regards,
PoorSickAudi

Will your Insurance Premiums not just take all that back off you and abit more in the next 3 years or so???

Wheelnut

Can anyone describe how the kerosene causes damage? I saw some pictures on the RTE news a week or so back. Someone had removed the head of a damaged engine. There seemed to be a wet sludge on the top of the piston and the mechanic could move the sludge with his finger.

I suppose the sludge could go down the side of the piston and gum up the rings, but on the other hand the rings are lubricated by oil spray from below so the oil supply is not cut off.

Also, if the sludge is not solid, why is it not blown out through the valves with a good rev-up?

Chimaera

It's an oil, so it's not going to be atomised correctly by the fuel injection system in a petrol engine. When it reaches the cylinder as large drops, a good chunk of it just going to hit the cylinder walls, the bit that remains suspended is going to burn badly because the combustion conditions are not optimised for this fuel. The stuff on the cylinders might partially burn too.

Partial combustion of any fuel, but oily fuels especially, is going to result in coking. This will stick in the cylinder and eventually cause real trouble.

Dartz

It's more than that. Kerosene has a very poor octane rating, which means it lowers the effective octane of the petrol it's mixed with. Drop it too far and you'll get preignition in the engine which pretty rapidly ****s everything up inside. So you've a buildup of carbon providing hotspots and then a fuel that's prone to pre-ignition.

That's a pretty quick recipe for disaster.

Anyway, now that it's showing up in Dublin, maybe something will be done about it. This is ****ing rediculously epidemic.

It's also stupid on behalf of the stretchers because it's immediately obvious. 2 or 3% kerosene might be swallowable on an engine and most people wouldn't notice any damage until a few fillups down the line - and even then, if they filled in a different station in the meantime, it'd dilute the worst of it down. You'd get away with it for much longer...

But the lack of trading standards in this country is crippling. The amount of ****e that gets sold off on people is rediculous.

fryup

is it a case of station owners being strong armed into buying this cr@p ?

mayo.mick

I'm thinking myself (and I'm not a mechanic either) that this has being going on for a long long time. Someone f**ked up on the mixing somewhere along the line and its that that's showing up now?

PoorSickAudi

Harold Finchs Machine wrote: »

Will your Insurance Premiums not just take all that back off you and abit more in the next 3 years or so???

Sorry i meant if the lab results come back as not being petrol stretching then the insurance won't cover it. They will pay the bill if it is fuel stretching. I've also heard of another car who filled in 1 of the same petrol stations in dublin as me and his car is a 131 and also in the garage with the same symptoms.

I think i also just got spammed by derry on the facebook group. 😒

Special Circumstances

mayo.mick wrote: »

I'm thinking myself (and I'm not a mechanic either) that this has being going on for a long long time. Someone f**ked up on the mixing somewhere along the line and its that that's showing up now?

Id say the money to be made is hardly worth it at lower, less damaging doses. If you reduced the amount of kero per tanker by a factor of 5, then you'd have to dose 5 times as many tankers to make the same money.
I think if it was just methanol they were adding they could have kept it going for a long time.

Wheelnut

Chimaera wrote: »

It's an oil, so it's not going to be atomised correctly by the fuel injection system in a petrol engine. ...

Dartz wrote: »

It's more than that. Kerosene has a very poor octane rating...

I understand that an oil will not burn properly and that lower octane will cause pinking, however I'm not sure that either would cause the current problems. What was shown on the news was a wet sludge, not a hard carbon mass. Also, the fact that it's oily should not interfere with lubrication. Pinking will damage the piston crown but the reports we are getting suggest the rings have melted. I also recall that during the change-over from leaded to unleaded petrol many older cars pinked continuously. However they still went on for many years and did not suffer terminal damage after a few tankfulls.

I'm just curious about what physically happens in the engine to cause the rings to melt or other mechanical failure.

dr.fuzzenstein

I would argue that it won't stay sludge for long.

Special Circumstances

Wheelnut wrote: »

I understand that an oil will not burn properly and that lower octane will cause pinking, however I'm not sure that either would cause the current problems. What was shown on the news was a wet sludge, not a hard carbon mass. Also, the fact that it's oily should not interfere with lubrication. Pinking will damage the piston crown but the reports we are getting suggest the rings have melted. I also recall that during the change-over from leaded to unleaded petrol many older cars pinked continuously. However they still went on for many years and did not suffer terminal damage after a few tankfulls.

I'm just curious about what physically happens in the engine to cause the rings to melt or other mechanical failure.

Melting, I believe, is due to stretched petrol not having the "charge cooling" properties of proper petrol.

Or maybe that gloop on top prevents the piston from cooling properly?

dr.fuzzenstein

Or if you don't believe it, try it out for yourself and report back to us. :P

Wheelnut

Special Circumstances wrote: »

Or maybe that gloop on top prevents the piston from cooling properly?

There could be something in that, many engines have a jet of oil directed at the bottom of the piston to aid cooling.

Zoney

This has me quite paranoid! Going to be sticking to the same local handy petrol station regardless of their price compared to anywhere else, so at least if things go wrong, I know where the dodgy petrol came from! I'll be completely filling the tank locally before any drives up to Mayo or Dublin for sure!

Alun

From reading this ...

http://www.independent.ie/irish-news/provo-gangs-run-petrol-stretching-fuel-scam-30674899.html

... it would appear that it's not the gangs targeting existing stations and using strong arm tactics to get them to buy their dodgy fuel, but that they're buying up existing stations with the money previously earned from their, now obsolete, diesel laundering operations.

expectationlost

dail pq on this http://oireachtasdebates.oireachtas.ie/debates%20authoring/debateswebpack.nsf/%28indexlookupdail%29/20141111~WRH?opendocument#WRH03400&utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter

investigation concentrating on Mayo, 79 samples from Border Midlands West Region, 1 case confirmed file being readied for prosecution in that case

Petrol stretching is an offence under section 102 (1A) of the Finance Act 1999 http://www.irishstatutebook.ie/1999/en/act/pub/0002/sec0102.html

contact your insurance provider

The Competition and Consumer Protection Commission - a merger of the Competition Authority and the National Consumer Agency - has been established to enforce consumer protection law and may be able to provide assistance to those affected by petrol stretching who are seeking redress.

poor sick passat

My car is a 131 volkswagen passat 1.4 tsi DSG (automatic) Had some problems with the car stalling when starting from cold, and kind of slow to move off and "missing" ( I am not a mechanic) when accelerating, seemed to be fine then when warmed up. Oil light did come on about 2 weeks ago, so checked and was low, put in 500ml to get back to middle of dip stick.
Stalling continue for 2 weeks, so took to garage and they say looks like petrol stretching, sending sample off to Lab for test. Garage claiming could cost thousands to repair. Insurance only cover unto 500 for bad fuel cases. Only bought fuel in Dublin stations since september. and mostly in reputable places.
The mother in law buys petrol in same station as us and had no problems?
All a bit strange.
how long does it take for the effects to happen from the "bad" fill?
Will report back when I hear about lab results.

mikeecho

poor sick passat wrote: »

My car is a 131 volkswagen passat 1.4 tsi DSG (automatic) Had some problems with the car stalling when starting from cold, and kind of slow to move off and "missing" ( I am not a mechanic) when accelerating, seemed to be fine then when warmed up. Oil light did come on about 2 weeks ago, so checked and was low, put in 500ml to get back to middle of dip stick.
Stalling continue for 2 weeks, so took to garage and they say looks like petrol stretching, sending sample off to Lab for test. Garage claiming could cost thousands to repair. Insurance only cover unto 500 for bad fuel cases. Only bought fuel in Dublin stations since september. and mostly in reputable places.
The mother in law buys petrol in same station as us and had no problems?
All a bit strange.
how long does it take for the effects to happen from the "bad" fill?
Will report back when I hear about lab results.

Please do report back the lab results.
But bear in mind, for many years, mechanics have being blaming dirty fuel for any issue that they can't immediately diagnose.

Btw, what part of the country did you get your fuel?

poor sick passat

bought petrol in North Dublin,

Wheelnut

poor sick passat wrote: »

... Only bought fuel in Dublin stations since september. and mostly in reputable places...

mikeecho wrote: »

...Btw, what part of the country did you get your fuel?

:rolleyes:

poor sick passat

Sorrry! just new to this, and not sure of the btw, presume that is between?

I bought petrol in Donegal and Leitrim in August.

cerastes

Chimaera wrote: »

As for spotting it, the smell should be a bit of a giveaway. Kerosene has a pretty strong smell and it's very distinct from the smell of petrol so if there's any meaningful amount of kerosene in petrol you'll probably get a whiff of it while filling up.

You would think that any follow up by the authorities would involve checking the paperwork and not just sampling the fuel, any discrepancy in where the deliveries came from would surely point them at least to the kind of fraud they are interested in, but to the consumers benefit too? given as I was under the impression and have been told, most or all the fuel comes from 2 main suppliers in Ireland.

delahuntv wrote: »

eh - that's the offence they can get the conviction on quite easily. They can then pass their findings onto gardai who can take criminal proceedings.

Customs can't take criminal proceedings themselves, but can very easily take a revenue case and its a hell of a lot easier to prove - even a small amount of kerosene being passed off as petrol is an offence.

Think of average garage - its serving 200+customers a day - probably a lot more in some areas. If they have a tank of say 30,000 litres of dodgy fuel, that could affect 600-800 cars.

Then the next delivery would be good fuel - 30,000 litres of good fuel mixed in with remnant of bad fuel would barely register on a test, so by the time customs have had a complaint, the garage has taken a new delivery and the proof cannot be gotten.

And without real PROOF - there's very little that can be done.

again, do they check the paperwork for discrepancies in the supplier?

Akrasia

poor sick passat wrote: »

Sorrry! just new to this, and not sure of the btw, presume that is between?

I bought petrol in Donegal and Leitrim in August.

BTW = 'By the way'

Ghost Train

Prime time tonight tonight at 21:30 will be discussing "petrol stretching and damage it can do"

Esel

In case you didn't know, derry is permagone.

For nostalgia, see this thread he started in the CT forum.

Jesus.

Ghost Train wrote: »

Prime time tonight tonight at 21:30 will be discussing "petrol stretching and damage it can do"

Conor fukking Faughan?

Comhrá

Prime Time on RTE 1 is covering the petrol stretching story tonight.

9.30 pm RTE 1

dastardly00

Started a few minutes ago.