[Born 2 Be Wild]

Originally Posted by prince_pervez

^^ In that case there is too much fuel wasted and too much water seeping in the tanks. What about the customers who filled before the OP and the ones after (if the OP was not stranded ?) All the customers will face the same problem untill the tank goes dry and it is not cleaned again.

Didnt want to go into the depth of it but now since u Asked I will explain to You What happens. The tanks At Most of the Bunks in HPCL are of 4 Sizes 11 KL (Kilo Litres) 16 KL , 22 KL And 45 KL, Water always settles Down at the bottom of the tank And we have a Water Paste with which we check water levels In Our tanks DAily On contact with water the dip turns pink

Now Ususally the Bunks that Sell High Volumes say in the region of 10 KL - 20 Kl A day normaly keep their Tanks Full Or more than Half The Only time Water will come out of the dispenser is when the The Petrol Stock is really low For Eg My Dispenser will stop dispensing Fuel When i have 1000 litres is the tank In A 22 Kl tank. Now at this point of time When i am low on Stock if i have water in my tank it will be a mixture of water and Petrol that will come out.

Now Low volume selling bunks usually run Low In Stock whereas Pumps In the Metros will get stocks each day Due to high volume so our tanks seldom go that Low hence no chance of water Coming out

Hope that explains how water goes into the car

[paragsachania]

Shocking Indeed!!

And I know that the Stretch between Kolhapur exit all the way down has very less No of 24Hrs Fuel stations.

I once waited in Davanagere for an hour for a Fuel station to open up just because I didnt want to fill it up any of the stations which I encountered between Hubli Bypass exit till Davanagere and drove in Fuel save mode in the night. Even the BP attached to Ghar Dhaba after the Railway crossing wouldnt open till 5-30/6-00am from what I learnt from tractor owners waiting in the queue there.

There are atleast 2-3 24Hrs fuel stations before the Dharwad-Hubli bypass starts (BP and IndianOil and about 75 Kms from where you filled) and are well maintained where I always refill during either directions of my Journey. Though 2 of them sell premium only, Its worth paying than getting into situation like yours.

For a complete night drive, It is good to have a note of these stations since I too have learnt from my experience that the choice is very less.

From Kolhapur till Pune, the options are plenty in the night.

[prince_pervez]

Originally Posted by Born 2 Be Wild

Didnt want to go into the depth of it but now since u Asked I will explain to You What happens. The tanks At Most of the Bunks in HPCL are of 4 Sizes 11 KL (Kilo Litres) 16 KL , 22 KL And 45 ....

That was informative. I have saved the text. Thanks for sharing. Some IITains' project.

[hvkumar]

To avoid having to wake up fuel pump attendants, what I do is to refuel before 1 am, so that I have enough fuel to last me the next 5-6 hours till daybreak. My experience is that fuel pump attendants even in 24H pumps go off to nap after 2-3 am and refuse to get up. Their "nap" goes on till 5 am at least. I found only the Reliance pump guys active throughout the night.

[anainar]

Originally Posted by Born 2 Be Wild

Now Low volume selling bunks usually run Low In Stock whereas Pumps In the Metros will get stocks each day Due to high volume so our tanks seldom go that Low hence no chance of water Coming out

Hope that explains how water goes into the car

Thanks for the explanation. It really helps us to understand what goes on.

So, can we say, as a consumer we check how much stock they have? Legally the bunks are supposed to display how much they have in stock. So, if they have less than 3-4kl stock, we should avoid the pump fearing water getting dispensed and if they have plenty of stock say 20kl the probability of water dispensing is much less?

Nainar

[sgiitk]

I had a similar incident around 1991. We were driving back from Lucknow and about 8km from home we decided to fill up. It was pump I had been patronizing for over 15 years. The car went about 500m and stalled. We rolled it to the next pump, owned by the ex-partner of No.1. We found water in the tank, so siphoned it all out, and then put in fresh petrol. It started pronto. I went back to #1 and gave my card to the chowkidar, and asked him to pass it on to the boss. The boss never bothered to call back (I know he got the card). So I stopped patronising #1, still do the same nor do my friends.

What I was told by a third party was the following. As it was raining, water must have gone into the tank. The outlet pipe is on a float and picks up petrol just below the surface. The tank was probably almost empty, so I got water instead of petrol!

[FastLove]

Pictures we took at the HP pump and at Metro FORD, HUBLI

[GTO]

Netarchie & Fastlove : Sorry to hear about your experience. Honestly, the pump looks pretty good and is the kind that I would fill from too. Could happen to anyone I guess, and all of us have to learn from your experience.

1. You say you drove 600 kms before filling up. Translated, your tank was completely empty? I'm going to start filling up, on the highway, at the 1/2 or 2/3rd mark from now reason. Reason : More the (existing) good fuel, lesser the effect of the (new) adulterated fuel.

2. As Amohit posted, it is probably a good idea to choose petrol pumps from smaller towns, than the lone pump in the middle of nowhere. Also, the more crowded a village petrol pump is, the better. Dad always says "Choose the petrol pump where you see Volvos (and other modern commercial vehicles) getting their replenishment".

Any update from Ford on the potential damage? I hope its nothing serious.

[f1fan]

Man, that looks like a decent pump from the outside. In unknown areas, I generally fill fuel from pumps that look good.

Need to be more extra careful going forward.

[Gansan]

I think our petrol is now blended with 10% ethanol and I remember reading somewhere that ethanol under certain conditions can turn in to water and being heavier than petrol, settle at the bottom of the tank. May be something similar happened here?

It will be a good idea to keep filling at all the known good bunks we come across in bigger towns every 150 - 200 Km or so en route, instead of waiting till the tank becomes almost empty.

[speedmiester]

Why does the water seep into the petrol storage tank in the first place? Can it be avoided all together?

[sbraj]

Originally Posted by GTO

Also, the more crowded a village petrol pump is, the better. Dad always says "Choose the petrol pump where you see Volvos (and other modern commercial vehicles) getting their replenishment".

Yes. Adding to that, choose the pump if there are lots of two wheelers filling from the pump. The local folks would be aware of the reputation of the pump. The crowd will be an indication of this.

[paragsachania]

This is the same Fuel Station located on the RHS (Towards Bangalore) just about a KM after Shiggaon.Isn't it?

When I stayed in Shiggaon in May 2009 for 4 days with a friend, I had refilled a tankful !!

Fortunately I could drive to Bangalore without even a knock in the engine, let alone a breakdown. Lucky then!

The looks does hint that it is a decent enough one for anyone to stop-by and fill up. It also has a Vittal Kamat attached to it which stopped operations almost a year back from now sighting operational issues (You can see that in the photo).

The reasons that made me opt for the two BP stations near Dharwad high court were:

1. Very cleanly maintained rest rooms even post midnight - If the Fuel station isnt doing great business, they would seldom care for cleanliness of the restrooms at least.

2. Availability of water for Washing as well as Drinking - Again, cleanly maintained basins and dispensers for drinking water with proper disposable cups.

3. The overall cleanliness of the Fuel station Itself at the first look from the side of the road. Well maintained Roof (Chakaachak), Clean & latest fuel dispensers what one would see in Cities et al.

4.Apart from this, I also look for the amount of illumination the Fuel station is lighted with in late nights. If they arent doing good, they wouldn't normally turn on all the lights to attract the drivers. Bad ones will usually light up only the Cabin to hint that they will serve at that odd hour.

I have stuck to these 2 fuel stations almost 10-12 night drive in the past one year and have been lucky not to have encountered any untoward situation(s) and hence recommending these to anyone taking the NH4 in the night since it is almost halfway between Bangalore and Pune.

[sudev]

Escalate matters. It is not only for you but for all consumers who may be getting fleeced.

As a rule I avoid filling up at pumps that look decrepit or do not seem to have too much custom. Even if there is no contamination the old petrol tends to have increased levels of "gum". A friend of mine from petroleum industry gave me this advice and I have stuck to this.

[mh09ad5578]

Something similar happened last november, me and my wife were returning to Chitradurga from bangalore, (thats NH-4), we had dinner at Cafe Coffe Day @ Dodballapura, wanted to top up fuel but they had run out of stock at the HP pump there. Refueled My santro Xing 2 kms ahead at another Hp pump.....this thing was an open pump with lightings and all. The engine started misfiring immediately after i started the engine...after half a kilometer of erratic misfires, i took the car of the road to check...it wouldnt start. it was 10.00pm in the night middle of nowwhere. Called up Hyndai road assitance Bangalore....those guys said, since we were pretty far from bangalore, they passed Tumkur Trident Hyundais's no.s. Some kind Soul did pick up the call but told me that since it was dassera eve, company tow vehicle was not available and he would send a private vehicle...it turned out t be a qualis. In the mean time i had a talk with my local mechanic...he said either the bunk attendant has filled diesel instead of petrol or there is water in the tank!! The Tow vehicle arrived by 11.30 pm. The Qualis driver told me that this bunk had reopened just a few days back after a closure of 5-6 years...."why did you fill petrol here?they must not have cleaned their storage tanks!!!!"I had never been towed in my life....and it was scary as hell...the brakes were working very poorly and the steering was very heavy (ya i have PS model) ....also the lights had gone quite weak dude to constant cranking of the engine, so battery was low. I was thinking that i would definately crash into the qualis...given the spacing between us...and the brake bite that was avaliable. We reached the service station at 12.30 am some 35 kms away. just left the vehicle there to come back in the morning as work could only be done then. Had great difficulty getting a lodge at tumkur at that odd hour-1.30 am.
the next morning went to the H.S.S- there was 6 liters of water in the tank!!!( i had filled 10 litres of petrol) the car already had about 15 litres if petrol...which to got wasted due to the water..the fuel filter was damaged, so were all the spark plugs!!!the total serving bill including tank cleaning was 1200 bucks. The Private tow Qualis had charged a ridiculous amount of R.2500/- for a 35 kms towing!!!( couldn't argue more because of the time of the emergency) and 750/- towards the lodging expense. The next day i had to do a complete refill of petrol which was again some 1500 bucks...
Money was not an issue here, but the mental tension that i had to endure was horrible!!!!. i didn't have the patience to go back to petrol bunk the same day..went back there a few days later...those guys flatly refused saying that the fuel wasn't the problem!!!i had not taken a bill....before this incident i never used to think about where to fill the petrol...or about the bill(not now though!!!)

some thoughts here
-i had the fuel to reach home....just was getting cautious.
- has started late from Bangalore 8.00pm thought i would reach home by 11.30 pm
-even if i had given those bunk guys 500 bucks for free i would have saved 6k in cash.....and millions in my sanity!!!!
-always refuel at bunks you know or where more vehicular moveent is there.
-i think it was my bad timing on my part...but now i have become extra cautious!!!



hope i have not bored you guys with my rant!!!!!!!!!