cross-posted from: https://lemmy.dbzer0.com/post/69785841
She called me because she couldn’t get her car started after work. We had to get it towed out of the underground parking which is quite a pain in the ass apparently.
I spent a couple hours troubleshooting the issue (smoky exhaust, barely started, ran like shit) and I burned out the starter in the process and had to put a new one in. Starters in these little 3.7L engines are pretty pathetic.
At some point in all this she mentioned she had filled up before driving to work, so I figured out how to jumper the fuel pump and pumped out this piss-colored junk. Feels oily like diesel, doesn’t burn explosively like you’d expect with straight gas.
Fresh fuel and some Seafoam snake oil to maybe clean injectors. Since I didn’t drop the tank to clean it perfectly, she’s going to put small amounts in for a few fills and burn it off completely between fills because the solution to pollution is dilution.
Her receipt showed she uses the gas pump, not the diesel, so I’m wondering how many people got to deal with this bullshit since I’m guessing the station got an entire compartment contaminated. Haven’t bothered to talk to the company, since I did the work myself and they certainly aren’t going to reimburse me for my time.
Ah well, it’s an excuse to do a pile of other maintenance I’d planned anyway and had parts for.
Wife is happy she isn’t buying a new car. Happy wife, happy life.
If it really is the gas station’s fault (and it probably is*), they might be legally liable for this. And the chances of getting some compensation out of them aren’t as bad as you might think. If they really pumped diesel through gas pumps for some time without catching it, then there are likely dozens, possibly hundreds of people affected by this. And many of them would have had repairs done at a professional shop. And when they find out what happened, many of them may be looking for their own compensation.
Depending on how many people were involved, it’s somewhat likely that a class action suit may be filed – a class action that you could potentially join in on (or start yourself if it doesn’t already exist). If there is a class action already in progress, all you’d need to do is register as one of the claimants and then stay tuned for updates on how big the settlement ended up being and how big of a share of that you get. (Probably not even close to the actual cost of repairs, after the lawyers take their cut, but will likely be better than nothing.)
Or, you could sue individually in small claims court. You do have enough of a claim here to make that worthwhile. Whether they should be on the hook for the cost of the starter is maybe debatable and up for the judge to decide, but they definitely owe you the cost of a tank of gas (not cheap these days!), and more importantly, they do owe compensation for your labor. Just because you did the work yourself doesn’t mean it’s worthless. The exact amount will also depend on the judge’s discretion, but something between a mechanic’s hourly rate and a professional auto shop’s hourly charge would be fair.
If I were you, I’d seriously consider filing in small claims, or talking to a lawyer about starting a class action. (There’s also the possibility that the gas station might be liable for a lot more than just a few car repairs. Should look into whether there’s any EPA/emissions-related laws they might have violated. A bunch of petrol cars (badly) burning diesel would have some nasty emissions, and the gas station might be liable for that.)
(And, yes, it’s likely ultimately the fault of the trucker who poured the fuel in the wrong tank at the gas station. Who may or may not be affiliated with the gas station or the gas station’s parent company. But that’s for the gas station to suss out with their own lawsuit against that driver and the driver’s company. They’ll be seeking compensation not only for all the money from those lawsuits, but also for the significant cost of pumping out, cleaning, and refilling their tanks.)
*It’s highly likely this was the gas station’s fault, not your wife’s user error. By design, diesel pump nozzles are slightly bigger than gasoline pump nozzles, so they won’t easily fit into the fill ports of modern gasoline cars. It’s (intentionally) very difficult to accidentally fill a modern gasoline car with diesel, specifically to prevent this sort of problem.