Is YOUR car being ruined by dirty petrol? Drivers warned to get a receipt every time they fill up or risk paying thousands to repair a damaged tank

ASHLEIGH DAVIS
4 August 2016
DAILY MAIL AUSTRALIA
Drivers are being warned to keep receipts after filling up their cars, after a spate of reports of contaminated fuel, costing tens of thousands of dollars in repairs.
Insurance company NRMA has confirmed four petrol stations in New South Wales have sold dirty fuel in the past 18 months.
In a report by Choice, the company said they had been contacted by a number of consumers who were in disputes with petrol station owners.
Drivers are being warned to keep receipts after filling up their cars, after a spate of reports of contaminated fuel (pictured are examples), costing tens of thousands of dollars in repairs
The bills ranged from $500 to up to $21,000 to repair their cars, after they unknowingly filling them up with dirty fuel.
The most common cause of contaminated fuel is water, particularly in diesel-powered cars, but other foreign particles can also enter a fuel storage tanks in service stations such as magnetic iron particles.
NRMA spokesman Peter Khoury told Daily Mail Australia when fuel contamination does happen it tends to be geographic in nature and quite dramatic, with a number of people filling up at the same service station and then promptly breaking down.
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‘The point that needs to be made is fuel is not intentionally contaminated, it’s almost always cases where water creeps into fuel tanks and contaminates the fuel and then the public buys the petrol,’ Mr Khoury said.
‘Service station owners are often completely unaware until the customers start breaking down.’
Mr Khoury said if people break down, the advice is to pull over, turn the engine off immediately and call for help.
Insurance company NRMA has confirmed four petrol stations in New South Wales have sold dirty fuel in the past 18 months. Stock image
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Insurance company NRMA has confirmed four petrol stations in New South Wales have sold dirty fuel in the past 18 months. Stock image
He also said it was important to contact the Department of Fair Trading to inform them of the incident.
‘It (contamination) happens from time to time often after heavy rain you have as situation that tanks haven’t been maintained properly and water seeps through.
‘The onus is on the service station providers to make sure their infrastructure is being adequately looked after so this doesn’t happen, last thing you want to be doing is contaminating customer’s cars.
‘At the end of the day it can be an expensive experience and if the public don’t have the type of car insurance that covers you for this it can be expensive and customer has done nothing wrong,’ Mr Khoury said.
To protect against contaminated fuel, drivers are advised to always ask for an itemised receipt, to take note of the bowser number when filling up a vehicle and to ensure their car insurance policy covers for such events.