Petrol station littered with stranded cars after Tesco contaminated fuel

A petrol station in Sandhurst, Surrey, nearly brought cars to a halt yesterday with some vehicles breaking down before even leaving the station.

A petrol station in Sandhurst, Surrey, nearly brought cars to a halt yesterday with some vehicles breaking down before even leaving the station when they filled their vehicles with diesel contaminated with water.

Tesco has said a full investigation has since been launched.

The people affected have reported calling the RAC and fuel specialists, then having to wait for hours for their tanks to be drained and their vehicles to be examined.

Steven Berry, 54 years old and one of the drivers affected, told Surrey Live: “I filled up, drove about 50 metres and the car died on me, the engine died out. It became very apparent very quickly that it was a mis-fuelling issue.

“Mainly because I broke down beside somebody else sat there stranded, and they said they’d done exactly the same thing. I looked around and there were cars everywhere, I counted 15.”

He added: “We have photographic evidence and some people have samples which are going to get analysed.”

Tesco staff were in the process of blocking off the pumps for use, however, Steven said there were a lot of them and the issue was urgent.

Steven added: “I literally just screamed at everybody to shut it down and put cones across the entrance way.”

“We all make mistakes but it’s how they are dealt with. The customer service just was not there. I’m not worried about compensation, I want them to review their process so if it happens again it will be less stressful for the customer,” he said.

Steve Lawson, another customer, said: “My car got about 100 metres, stopping in the service road, and I counted at least 15 cars that didn’t travel more than 50 metres from leaving the pump. Some people made it onto the main A30.

“Just getting a taxi back to Tesco to collect my car was another £22 in taxi fare.”

Steve had a refund from Tesso, however, he still had to pay out £264 to drain the fuel tank and pay to fill it up again with non-contaminated fuel. He will also have to pay out more in the next coming days for a car service, the Express reports.

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