If your car's engine is damaged as a result of a “misfuelling” incident through no fault of your own, you shouldn't be out of pocket. But you could well be.
Should a petrol attendant put the “wrong” fuel in your tank and neither they nor you notice before you pull off, you won't get far. Once the car has spluttered to a stop you'll have to get it towed to a workshop for the fuel tank to be drained and engine repairs done, if necessary.
Clearly, you shouldn't have to foot the bill if the mistake wasn't yours, but while many service station owners take responsibility and pay immediately, some resist. In some cases they’ve initially been happy to take responsibility for the mistake but start backtracking when the repair bills mount.
Motlatsi's fuel mix-up happened at a filling station in Centurion some years ago.
The fuel tank of her car, a Volvo S40, was almost empty when she asked the attendant to put in R500 worth of diesel. As she arrived home, the car stalled. She noticed the smell of petrol and her receipt confirmed the tank had been filled with petrol. When the misfuelling was reported to the filling station owner, he acknowledged the error and accepted responsibility for it.
The filling station initially arranged for the car to be repaired by a technician of their choice, but when that failed, they had it towed to a Volvo dealership. Somewhere along the way, the car's engine control module had been damaged, which meant the dealership had to replace it at a cost of R13,450 before attending to the misfuelling issue.
The filling station paid that, but things soured when the second invoice of R18,600 for fuel damage repair was submitted. That’s when Motlatsi received a letter from the filling station’s insurer, saying because there were “clear disclaimer signs” stating it is the customer's responsibility to ensure the correct fuel is dispensed, the filling station was absolved of all responsibility and it was not “prepared to entertain” the claim.
Here's the thing: companies are responsible for negligence on the part of their employees regardless of the signs they choose to erect. After I took up that case, the claim was settled. This past week I investigated a misfuelling case unlike any other that’s landed in my inbox.
Theresa Zgerski of Tableview, Cape Town, had been travelling from George with her 16-year-old daughter on the evening of Sunday, August 28, when she stopped at the BP Heritage Park in Strand to top up her tank. She drives a Chev Sonic, a small car which would typically be petrol powered, but hers is a diesel. Because of that, she says, she is always careful to make sure attendants really “get” that she is requesting diesel, not petrol. Having paid her R600, she drove off, but shortly afterwards her car’s engine light came on, on the highway.
She immediately suspected petrol had been pumped into her tank instead of diesel and, sure enough, the “slip” issued by the filling station revealed that’s what happened.
She pressed on, feeling it was too dangerous to stop in that location, but the car broke down completely shortly afterwards.
“We were trapped in the centre of hectic traffic, in the dark,” she said.
Police came to her rescue and a mechanic towed the car to his workshop.
Luckily, the engine wasn’t damaged and it cost Zgerski a relatively modest R2,870 to have the fuel drained and the engine flushed, after which the car drove perfectly, as it had before the incident.
Crucially, given that she had the “slip” as proof of the misfuelling, she didn’t ask the mechanic to keep a sample of what he’d drained from her car’s tank.
That turned out to be a mistake, because the filling station claimed the attendant had pumped diesel as requested, but he’d selected the petrol option instead of diesel on the hand-held point-of-sale machine by mistake.
Zgerski was provided with the filling station’s record of the transaction captured by office staff.
It showed the transaction as having taken place two minutes later than stated on Zgerski’s “slip”, diesel rather than petrol dispensed and a slightly different attendant name (Dumisa instead of Dumisani).
The biggest discrepancy was the pump station — No 3 vs No 5. I said in an email to BP Southern Africa’s customer service representative that the car was functioning perfectly before the incident and the engine trouble began within minutes of the allegedly wrong fuel being pumped into her near empty tank. That the draining of the tank solved the problem presents extremely compelling evidence, along with the slip, that the wrong fuel was pumped into the vehicle.
He responded: “We requested that the customer provide us with the mechanical report and/or the samples and they have not been able to do so.
“We explained that the details typed by the attendant on the slip would not have affected the fuel grade dispensed before paying and have further asked that the customer visit the site to view CCTV footage of the event, which she has declined.
“The customer is adamant that they should be paid for the damages caused to their vehicle even though they are unwilling to assist in the investigation.
“It is for these reasons that we are unable to investigate further until such time the customer agrees to view the CCTV footage or provide us with the report which would have been drawn up by their mechanic and samples.”
Curiously, he said not a word about the conflicting information on those receipts. So I visited a BP station to get a better understanding of how the system works. An obliging manager confirmed the hand-held payment machines give the attendant the choice of petrol or diesel so there could be human error there.
The two-minute time difference was normal, she said, as the first is the actual time of filling and the second, on the office generated slip, the time when the attendant handed over the slip to office staff and it was captured by the system. The name discrepancy was not too major either.
But the conflicting pump numbers was significant, she said.
“Impossible. That’s not the same transaction.”
To be continued.
WHAT TO DO
Be alert when filling up. If either you or the attendant aren't paying attention, misfuelling can occur.
Look at the pumps — diesel pumps have blue nozzles and petrol pumps have green ones.
Check your slip to make sure the right fuel was dispensed — that way you can spot a problem before you start up and arrange for the car to be towed away for tank draining. Though, as this case demonstrates, you can’t always trust what’s printed on the slip.
If you do drive off and the car splutters, then stalls, call for assistance. National Automobile Dealers’ Association chairperson Mark Dommisse said whether the service station or another workshop works on the car, you must insist that the facility is RMI approved.
And ask them to retain a sample of the fuel they drain.
Some motor insurance policies include cover for misfuelling. Check yours.
Service station owners have insurance cover for misfuelling as part of their franchise agreements.
• GET IN TOUCH: You can contact Wendy Knowler for advice with your consumer issues via e-mail: consumer@knowler.co.za or on Twitter: @wendyknowler.
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