[amitoj]

Guys
Was leafing through the 10th Anniversary Special edition of outlook when came across this:
"Adulteration of petrol and diesel is a big ticket scam that involves an annual recurring loss of at least Rs 10,000 crore to the exchequer. And worse, there is hardly any player in the industry who can claim not to be involved. Be it the public sector oil companies... the public and private sector refineries... state and central govts and even the local police stations."
"Naptha with petrol, kerosene with diesel, recycled engine oil with fresh lubricants"
"Public sector oil companies like IOC, HP and BP that run a network of petrol pumps are the primary culprits because it is here that the consumer gets spurious fuel."

And i thot company owned company operated pumps were the best place to get clean fuel!!! I was so naive.

"Most of the diesel adulteration is done by diverting kerosene meant for public distribution system (PDS) which is very much within the PSU's jurisdiction. Then, they release petro products like naptha and other solvents like pentane, benzene and toluene to non existent facotries, which go into adulterating petrol."

as per the article, the adulteration happens even before the fuel reaches the pumps. Even private companies are involved... Reliance is one name thast pops up time n again in the article... how "Reliance products included OCF-90 for mixing with petrol and C-9 similar to diesel"

With all this adulteration... wots the point in implementing Bharat III ??

Comments?

Amitoj

Change will happen only when the license system for fuel outlets is removed.

1. Let petro retailers open as many outlets as they wish, as long as they fulfill safety regulations. Let companies decide which retailer they want to hire/fire as their partner. Free market.

2. Set very clear standards for quality of fuel. None of this Bharat standard BS just to show "we are different". There is nothing wrong in adopting Euro specification.

3. Allow third party laboratories to collect samples from fuel outlets and conduct examination. If sample is found contaminated or not upto octance/cetane rating, fine the retailing company a huge fine. Say about 10% of their yearly revenue.

All will fall in line in a month, if not less.

[amitoj]

i specially like point 3... as long as the testing body is independent and not corrupt. Otherwise, even the private retailers will keep adulterating the fuel... Reliance has been mentioned in the article for mixing LDO in diesel that they supply to the public sector companies.

[RJK]

hahaha...no wonder reliance fuel is cheaper than the regular fare.

[amitoj]

hahahaa.. good one, rj
but all this makes me wonder about one more thing.. though it may be far fetched. Do the indian car manufacturers know about this adulteration? And as a result are not so willing to introduce better engines and better models into the country?
Coz.. after all.. wots the point in introducing a well evolved engine when its not gonna get good fuel?

[Deeps]

i am sure the manufacturers know about the adulteration. Most manufacturers do downtune the engine in order to cope with the lower quality of fuel. Octavia RS is an example!

[iceman91]

totally agree on this. especially goa has very bad fuel. know three friends who have blown their engines due to bad fuel filled in goa. all three had modded engines and all three broke down after filling gas in goa

[v_s_natarajan]

just read that issue of outlook.
from what it says, you cannot get pure gas anywhere.
I am wondering whether I should stop using speed/power/premium and shift to ordinary unleaded gas.
:(

[vikram_s]

Originally Posted by v_s_natarajan

just read that issue of outlook.
from what it says, you cannot get pure gas anywhere.
I am wondering whether I should stop using speed/power/premium and shift to ordinary unleaded gas.
:(

Actually, I think it may be better to use a premium fuel, since the potential to do volume adulteration is lesser. The 'janta' unleaded fuel would be more prone to adulteration since it sells in high volume.

While on this topic I had two queries :

- what does one do if bad fuel has been used...apart from changing the fuel filter and cleaning the tank ?

- since the fuels outside Mumbai would be worse than what is available here, what does one do for ourstation travel ? Has anyone actually carried extra fuel in a separate can ?

Viky

[libre sito]

Well well well this was going to come up sooner or later however what i want to add that people staying in mumbai can stay a lot calmer now as the oil companies are in a soup themselves after the whole scam came out so they have pulled up there sleves and cleant up the bad act so you can really rely on COCO outlets and most of the fuel stations in mumbai are being checked once in two weeks or so so is not hapening at that large a scale so mumbaiites chill out and just watch out where your tanking up

[libre sito]

Hey iceman i think gujrat has the worst fuel ever as there are maximum bikes and autos and most of them use keroscene so the fuel stations do a lot of mixing to get a big buck out of the small sales.Well you can say there are more keroscene retail outlets as compared to fuel stations and the best part is if you fill keroscene at a particular point today and go back there tomorrow the fellow wont be there but will be some where else so you cant even catch them that easily.

[revvhed]

.. and i'm talking of the two kinds of petrol here guys .. very recently i was told by my mechanic not to use any of the fuels that have additives already blended in them .. he recommended that i use regular unleaded and add Clean System G if i felt the need .. i generally use only Power from the HP company pump in Bandra .. the reason i do so is because it's 91 RON and so of a slightly higher octane rating than regular unleaded and still quite affordable .. i have also heard reports that Speed is a better blend than Power and some people who have used it claim their vehicles run smoother and better .. i for one am mortally afraid to fill gas at any other pump and so have not tried Speed myself .. has anyone here tried out both and if so is there really a difference .. or is unleaded better .. it's all very confusing since we don't really know the type of additives that go into these mixes or their chemical compositions .. opinions please ..
revvhed

[DCEite]

Revvhead, i regularly use Power from HP (is it not 87 octane with additives?..).. and i am quite satisfied with it. I dont know, but it seems that its the only petrol that is not adultrated. Reason: i regularly get 15-16 kmpl without ac on my wagonr (even with not so clever driving). Not only that, if i am not in any mood to spend more bucks, i do get normal petrol filled up from HP station always. Dont know, but its seems to work for me...
Never used Speed though. Although my friend who uses Speed Diesel in octavia is pretty satisfied with it.

[amitoj]

dceite, maybe you would get an even better mileage if the fuel were not adulterated!
Remember the car manufacturers probably tune the cars taking into consideration the quality of fuel available here.
Also, is mileage the first thing to go for a toss in case of bad fuel?
For example, on my trip to kodai, my car was running perfectly until i got it refilled jus before the ghat section. And after that, the car kept stalling at low revvs... initially i thought its due to the cold weather but even when the car's engine had reached the usual temp level, it kept stalling. This kept on happening until i got my car filled at the usual petrol pump where i always get it filled when in bangalore. since then, the car hasnt stalled. I am thinking this would be due to very bad fuel..

[Steeroid]

After all that adultrated fuel and subsequent engine issues, all of us here will be

POOR FOR SURE !!!


Cheers

Steer