Shell responsible for my misfuel - unleaded in diesel car standards non compliance

Diligent

david39 wrote: »

When I was in the retail petrol industry, the colour of the pump was irrelevant. Although diesel pumps were usually black, petrol pumps were in the livery of the petrol company. This pracrice went out of the window when multi-hose pumps that dispensed all grades of fuel were introduced. The pumps are usually in the supplying company's brand livery.

However, there was a legal requirement that diesel fuel was dispensed through black hoses, unleaded petrol through green hoses and leaded petrol through red hoses.

To the best of my knowledge, those restrictions still apply and they do seem to be operative on all the stations from which I buy petrol.

Make sure you pick up the correct colour hose, you'll get the fuel you expect - even so, I still check in the pump display window!

Many thanks for your comment. All the hoses arouind here are black - just the fillers have the colour coding.

I think I've already mentioned that I've never done it before and probably won't do it again. From a consumer perspective if it happens so many times in a year then is there anything that can be chaeply and easily be done by the suppliers or car manufacturer's (apart from a notice) to minimise the risk?

Some who never make mistakes or follow learned behaviours are indeed lucky!

Diligent

John_Jizzle wrote: »

my advice - find another site with people who actually like to help

As someone new to this forum I found your comment supportive. My experience of other forums is that people try to help or pass positive comments. There will always be the odd one or two who reduce the value, but that is to be expected.

I guess my post is about being careful but also to see whether anyone has ideas on this solving this problem that is clearly not a one-off.

Once again thanks for your comment - much appreciated.

arcon5

Diligent wrote: »

As someone new to this forum I found your comment supportive. My experience of other forums is that people try to help or pass positive comments. There will always be the odd one or two who reduce the value, but that is to be expected.

I guess my post is about being careful but also to see whether anyone has ideas on this solving this problem that is clearly not a one-off.

Once again thanks for your comment - much appreciated.

Walking in to a lamp post is not a one off, but mistakes happen. It's just human nature.

Diligent

arcon5 wrote: »

Walking in to a lamp post is not a one off, but mistakes happen. It's just human nature.

According to the AA "At least 150,000 drivers put the wrong fuel in their car every year. That's one every three and a half minutes."

That is probly the recorded cases.

At an average cost of £200 for draining a tank then that's £30m/yr. The tip of an iceberg? If a car is driven it can mean the need for a new engine. I suspect that the total costs are far higher.

So people are making mistakes. Or should we say having accidents? "an unplanned event that may or may not result in injury or property damage".

When accidents happen people often look for someome to blame, just has happened here. The OP blamed Shell and the majority of respondants blamed him. This is counterproduvtive and goes no where.

In investigating accidents the aim is to identify the root cause
to see whether anything can be done to prevent a similar recurrence.

Is someone mis-fuelling every three and half minutes a problem? You may not think it is, but clearly it is to those that have the "accident".

It probably wouldn't cost much to look into and there may or may not be simple and cost-effective solutions. I think my point is to "investigate" rather than "blame".

I don't know how often people walk into lampposts; one every 3 1/2 min? Or the cost. Mistakes or "accidents" do happen and will continue to happen. Sometimes it's down to human failure and sometimes it's not.

Aircraft crashing is not a one-off. We simply don't say it's a "mistake" or human nature.

Sometimes it is human nature, sometimes it's mechanical failure. Sometimes its combination of both. But because of the risk, highly detailed investigations are undertaken. I'm not aware of many investigations taking place into people walking into lampposts, or indeed what the frequency is. I suspect it's not every 3 1/2 min.

With the frequency and cost of misfuelling maybe it's worth a look at just to see if anything can be done. I think that's what the point of my comments are. Something may be able to be done, or it may not.

It's whether there is the feeling that it's a problem or not. Costing well over £30 million a year, we're probably all in some way picking up part of that cost.

I think if the debate could be moved beyond "blame" it could be useful, otherwise it might as well end.

ajuk

I need to see a picture to have a proper opinion.

herneuen

I sympathise with what happened to you and if its any consolation you're not alone. The number of motorists who each year pump unleaded into diesel cars is reckoned to be around 150,000 and the AA has a business sideline flushing out vehicle fuel tanks where the person has put petrol into a diesel. I've come across a number of devices which claim to stop motorists doing this, including a device called Diesel Head which may be worth a look. There are an increasing number of car manufacturers now going to the trouble of manufacturing technology to stop owners putting wrong fuel in the tank and they are not known for wasting money so this suggests they are aware there is an issue.

Diligent

I think it's time to bring this thread to a close.

I'd like to thank those that have made positive contributions. Anyone that read my post correctly would note that I wasn't blaming shell and indeed I was trying to move the discussion forward from blame, something which ironically, many of the other posters seem unable to do.

It is my first exposure to this forum, which I thought might be consumer focused, but clearly it isn't and for many it's simply a giggle.

If we lived in a society where when things went wrong we never try to correct them we'd be in a very sorry state now
.

I thought the name of the forum "money-saving", might actually give a clue as to the purpose of the forum. Clearly, for those that make comments the're only objective is to save money for themselves and not others.

Let's not blame, but move forward to seek solutions. Just for the record, it seems that 20% of misfuellings occur to the emergency services. I'm sure that many here would sneer when that ambulance taking a badly injured person to hospital grinds to a halt because of misfuelling...

So once again, thank you for the positive comments. The discussion has enabled me to think about next steps in preventing misfuelling, some of which the money-saving commentators to this thread are paying for through their taxes.


As far as I'm concerned it's closed. It's also goodbye from me, I won't be back, so there is little point in "trolling" again.

May you all continue to fuel your cars without any mishaps.
.

Another_Sucker

There are lots of smart people on this site, especially those who haven't misfuelled - yet. And when you do, if the pumps of different fuels are misleadingly intermingled, misleadingly coloured, and are labelled with lettering which is 'on its side' and in a font which is smaller than the BSI minimum, then I'm sure you'll put the blame 100% on yourself.

One of my original questions was "What is the point of trading standards?"

Trading Standards recommend predominant colours of pumps, but Shell have a corporate image document, running to 67 pages, which directs the colouring of pumps in direct contravention to this recommendation.

Some people have cleverly said that I can't tell the difference between green and black. Strange that the corporate policy for Shell's V-Power demands that both petrol and diesel pumps are predominantly red.

Most large retail organisations have some duty of care towards their customers, and accept that duty. Shell take absolutely no such duty.

Most retail organisation have national managers who know what standards their company are following, and ensure that they are adhered to. This national Shell manager told me that they were following certain standards - which I proved they weren't. The manager also told me that their pumps had been certified by the standards organisations. The BSI told me that there had been no contact with Shell.

How much responsibility does Shell demonstrate when the unit had 3 pumps, which were, left to right

1. Red and black
2. Red and black
3. Green and yellow

Guess what? Pumps 1 and 3 were petrol whilst pump 2 was diesel.

No other leading petrol retailer has anything like this.

BP, Sainsbury, Tesco etc all comply with the BSI standards - their recommendations as well as their edicts -

Diesel one colour, petrol different
Petrol nozzles predominantly green, diesel black (Shell's both red)
Diesel and petrol not intermingled.

Wonga

I always assumed that the colour was to distinguish fuel to aid identification maybe to disabled drivers, those that can't read, foreign travellers etc.