A friend of mine in the motor industry warned me at the weekend not to buy petrol from the following places: Morrisons, Asda, Safeway, Tescos & Total. He said something was definately up because of the amount of people suffering oxygen sensor failures after buying fuel from these outlets was getting silly. With some car makes these oxygen sensors are now on backorder until JUNE!! Then today this... This from the BBC: Link Trading standards officials have launched an investigation after drivers complained that they had been sold "contaminated" fuel. Drivers from across south-east England believe they may have been sold petrol containing ethanol, which has damaged their cars. Their vehicles have been juddering, misfiring and had a loss of power. A spokesman for trading standards said it was illegal to include ethanol in petrol without telling customers. Ian Hillier, a petroleum spokesman for the Trading Standards Institute, said: "I understand that there have been around 75-100 complaints from people in south-east England. "Including ethanol in petrol is not really contaminating it, but there has be a clear warning to people who buy petrol as to exactly what is in it. "Ethanol is actually seen as a 'green' measure but if it is sold without any warning then offenders are in breach of biofuel labelling regulations." Dozens of drivers have also been contacting BBC Radio Northampton's consumer programme after filling up their cars with what they believe to be contaminated fuel. Dave Odell works for Tony Brooks' a garage in Northampton. He said the garage had had a number of cars with damaged oxygen sensors. Another report here and another here
I can confirm this as I work in the Motor trade and it is damaging the O2 sensors and in worst cases is actually damaging the catalitic convertor. Apparently Sainsburys Petrol is ok as they get their petrol from BP.
just asked my dad who is a MOT inspector and he says that it apparently Tesco mainly with some of the others. It does damage the oxygen sensors on modern cars, luckily i drive a 1996 Peugeot 306 dieselthat is a complete wreck anyway.
