As if fuel wasn't expensive enough…
Financially, filling your petrol tank can be a sobering experience, but, according to figures from Halfords Autocentres, for 300,000 UK drivers a year, the cost can be astronomical. The reason? A misfuelling mishap, which can cost anything from £500 to £3,000 to rectify, once costs such as garage call-outs, refilling the tank and additional transport costs are factored in. Even worse news for the motorist, says Halfords, is that only half of the misfuelling motorists are able to claim the costs back on their insurance.
One explanation is that motorists are switching from petrol to more economical diesel and the slender unleaded nozzle will fit into the filler neck on the diesel vehicle, unlike the other way round, although Halfords says that some people have managed it! Diesel cars now account for 51 per cent of new car purchases and the fact that 53 per cent of misfuelling incidents are associated with cars less than four years old and that spikes occur in March and September (peak months for new car purchases) seem to indicate that the problem might be unfamiliarity with a new vehicle. To underline the scale of the problem, a motorist in the UK puts the wrong fuel in his car once every 1 minute and 45 seconds.
Two-car families, where one is petrol and one diesel, are particularly prone to misfuelling, plus there are regional variations, with drivers from Scotland and Yorkshire making most mistakes, closely followed by the South West. Drivers from London and the South East were 10 times less likely to misfuel.
If you should misfuel, Rory Carlin from Halfords Autocentres says “Do not attempt to drive off as this will circulate the incorrect fuel and could cause more unnecessary damage which may not be covered by some motor insurance, vehicle warranty or breakdown cover providers.”
Many of the incidents are linked to moments of stress, or when drivers are busy or distracted. Halfords sells a Fuelsure Diesel Fuel cap, which only allows you to fill your car from a diesel pump, while a cheaper alternative is a ‘Diesel Only’ sticker, that might just jog the memory in time to save hundreds or thousands of pounds.
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