Drivers are furious after fuel from the pumps at a major supermarket were ‘contaminated’ and is causing their cars to ‘break down’.
Several people claim they have experienced problems with their vehicles after buying unleaded petrol last week at Morrisons in Knight Road, Strood, Kent.
Some drivers are now fuming, claiming they are hundreds of pounds out of pocket after filling up their cars with fuel that has damaged them.
David Abernethy, 64, says he put £65 in his Range Rover at around 5pm on Wednesday, September 25 and noticed something wrong the next morning.
He said: ‘I had a physio appointment so I tried to start my car up and it just didn’t want to start.
‘There was about 30 seconds of rumbling noises which I thought was unusual but after I was on the road it seemed to be okay.’
Mr Abernethy drove 15 minutes to his appointment and then back again but he says the car was still not working properly.
Then he saw on social media that other motorists had been having similar issues after filling up at Morrisons.
Earlier this year, the supermarket announced all its petrol stations had been taken on by another company, Motor Fuel Group (MFG).
David said he tried to contact MFG without success.
He added: ‘I didn’t use my car all day Friday and rang them again on Monday because my wife couldn’t get to work, but I didn’t get through.
‘I ended up ringing the AA who came out on Monday and drained 65 litres of fuel out of my car.’
David asked for a sample of the fuel which he says was ‘a third water’.
He added: ‘It cost me £360 to get it drained.
‘The AA then advised me to fill up with unleaded premium which I did for £90 – so in total this has all cost me more than £500.
‘The mechanic showed me all the water in the bottle and said there shouldn’t be that much in the system.
‘I don’t normally fill up there, it’s just unfortunate I was in the Morrisons car park at that time.’
John Lowdon, who lives just 300 yards away from the Morrisons, filled his car up at around 8.30am on Friday, September 27, and noticed problems straight away.
The 74-year-old put £48 of petrol into his Ssangyong Tivoli ready to drive to Dorset for a family holiday on Sunday but says the car ‘spluttered’ on his way home.
He said: ‘I managed to get home but the car was spluttering the whole time and I didn’t know what it was so I went out later to try it again and the car was dead, it wouldn’t do anything.
‘I went back down in my wife’s car to the petrol station that afternoon and when I got there pump seven had a ‘do not use’ yellow box over it.
‘So I went into the shop and they gave me a piece of paper with the number and email address of the fuel provider on it.’
After trying to get through on several occasions, he says the company confirmed it was investigating the problem.
He added: ‘I have no idea what was wrong with the petrol, all I know is that my car is dead.
‘At the moment I don’t know what’s gone on. As far as I’m concerned, you’re buying the petrol from Morrisons.
‘If you go and buy a packet of somebody’s sausages in Morrisons you don’t then have to go back to them to fix the problem.
‘I haven’t got a quote yet from my mechanic. I’ve left my car outside my house and he’s going to go and do it and I’ll pay what I have to pay. We had to drive to our holiday in my wife’s car.
‘But there are people that just can’t afford to pay for it. If their car has just stopped in the middle of Strood they have no option but to pay £90 to get it towed away, and then £250-£300 to have it fixed – plus the cost of filling it up in the first place.
‘It’s something like £450, and some people don’t have that nowadays and rely on their cars for work.’
As of October 1, the unleaded option at pumps three, four, seven and eight were all out of use.
Several other people have taken to Facebook to report issues with their cars after filling them up at the same petrol station.
A Morrisons spokesman said: ‘We don’t own or operate the petrol sites anymore – they are all managed by MFG’.
MFG has been contacted for comment.