Protect your car from contaminated fuel

(WSPA) – When one of our most costly possessions stops working, it is downright disturbing.

That’s just what happened to Joel Willard’s wife when he said her car quit running shortly after she filled up, and he had to tow it to the mechanic.

“Maybe a couple of hours later he called me and said hey, I need you to come over here, I want to show you something,” Willard said. “So I immediately went to his shop and he had a glass container he pumped gas through that gas line into that glass container and it was mostly water.”

Problems from the pump

Technicians at Fairway Ford said they see bad gas issues several times a month, usually from water contamination. Often the car won’t start, but Nathan McAbee, the Assistant Service Manager, said when it does you’ll know it.

“That’s when you have that skipping sensation, bucking sensation, lack of power those types of things,” McAbee said, who went on to explain, “If enough water is introduced you could actually have the piston come up and bend the connecting rod in the engine because that water will not compress.”

If you don’t get that water dried out, it could corrode metal fuel pump components, leading to lots of issues down the road.

Mechanics said drivers should fill up at gas stations that see a lot of volume and are newer.  That way the fuel isn’t sitting in storage for too long, and those tanks are made of a polymer plastic, much less susceptible to leaching than old steel tanks.

Willard called the gas station to report the contamination, and then a good friend steered him in the right direction.

“He said nuh uh, here’ s what you need to do, you need to call the Department of Agriculture and they will send somebody out to test it because the company may not be straight up with you,” said Willard.

Steps to report

So he reported it to the agency by following these easy instructions from the SC Department of Agriculture.

Shannon Gault, with the South Carolina Department of Agriculture , said fuel inspectors test more than 64,000 gas pumps each year in the state, making sure the gallons and octane are accurate.

Gault, who is the Fuel, Weights and Measures Supervisor, explained that when someone files a report, their staff acts fats.

“That’s our number one priority, when we get the report from Columbia when they notify us, we are immediately to go and obtain that sample from the location that they are sending us to,” Gault said.

On each pump, you’ll see a certification sticker, helpful information to file a report. At the least, you’ll need to include in the report the station address and pump number.

And if contaminated fuel is found, Eva Moore the SC Dept of Agriculture spokesperson explained, “We will provide a sample of the report to the consumer who called in the complaint, as well as to the gas station and then it’s up to the consumer to do what they want to do with it.  If we find contaminated gas we are going to stop the sale of fuel at that gas station.”

“I rode by the gas station and they had their tanks roped off, they had shut them down and then I called the company and I said hey did you all find out anything, and she said, yes we checked it and we didn’t have any water in it.  And I said, well, it’s a funny thing that your pumps are shut down because the Dept of Agriculture shut you down because you do have water in it, and she said let me check on that.”

Armed with the state’s report, Willard got the company to cover hundreds of dollars in repairs.

“Thank goodness I had the Dept of Agriculture involved because that particular company, it’s no longer around, they were not going to pay for my repairs and it was absolutely their fault.”

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