Insider reveals crafty methods used for fuel theft during car servicing

The most pathetic thing that I noticed at the service center on day 2 itself was the theft of petrol.

BHPian Sai Teja recently shared this with other enthusiasts.

Hi guys, this is Sai Teja here, posting for the first time on this platform. To give you guys a bit of my background, I am a recent graduate of Automobile Engineering(B.Tech) from a so called "esteemed institute" in Chennai. Sorry, just couldn't hold myself from taking a few potshots at them. So, speaking about the relevant things, we own i.e not me but my father, a 2006 Hero Honda Passion plus and a 2017 Baleno Delta. Obviously not an exciting garage, but I hope that it doesn't matter as what makes us be here is our love for these machines and the excitement they give us, whatever the size and segment they belong to.

The story of my internship dates back to December 2021. It was a requirement by our institute's curriculum to have worked in a real environment for 15 days and produce a legitimate certificate as a proof of that. So, me and my friend Bunty (not keeping him anonymous, we actually call him that way) got a bit over-enthusiastic and decided to work for 30 days. The time of November in 2021, not being too far away from the then recent lifting up of covid lockdown, made many service centers reluctant to allow us be a part of their setup. One might wonder why we weren't trying to get into something like a genuine manufacturing plant. The limitations of our location in Andhra Pradesh and heavy restrictions imposed during those days forbid us from being a trainee at any genuine manufacturing facility. At last we ended up at a NEXA showroom situated alongside the highway in Andhra Pradesh, and there begins our Internship, a very fancy word for what we were going to do in the upcoming month- sweat all day long, smelling the obnoxious diesel and it's fumes along with the scent of petrol at times and return home with greasy and oily clothes. I still wonder sometimes that Internship was too fancy a word for the work we have done, but nevertheless it helped get a few cars back on the road.

On the very first day, me and Bunty were assigned to work under two technicians. Both of those technicians were young, under 30 but they have been doing this work for the past 11-12 years each. The first job which I assisted on was the replacement of the steering rack on a 2016 Baleno. The early Baleno's did have a problem with the power steering system, which we ourselves have encountered with our 2017 model. However, I don't remember Maruti Suzuki issuing any recall but the service centers were surprisingly willing to change the racks when any issue with them was noticed and that too for free of cost. The issue of this power steering involved a noticeably heavier steering and squeaky noises from column at times. The noises could often be mistaken for poorly assembled interiors of the marutis, but the weight of the steering makes the driver to pin point the issue. So when I asked for a bit of detailing regarding this issue which we ourselves have been plagued with, the technician informed me that the assist motor was at times delivering bit too much torque to the rack, which grinded the gears on the rack and the advisable fix was to replace the rack (advised by MS india). After the disassembly of the older rack from the car, I tried to get a look of the older rack but it wasn't visible as it was well shielded and wasn't easy to break apart either. The new rack was fitted and the car was now good to go.

The most pathetic thing that I noticed there was the theft of petrol. When we arrived there, only one of the ten technicians was doing that. Unfortunately, I caught him doing that on the second day, only to watch him do so for the next one month unable to complain due to my inferior role and the begging we had to do to get to work there. So on that day I simply asked him how was he doing it, to which he replied something like only he had managed to do it pretending to be a genius, but he didn't explain what he was exactly doing. I always thought that the fuel injected systems are comparatively tougher to steal from as it would involve tampering with some electric circuits. Still curious (with no other intentions), me and my friend went to the technicians we were assigned to ask about how he managed that, thinking it was a common practice for them for to steal some. And to our surprise no one else knew about how to do it or how we was managing after all. We later came to know that he never took no more than a litre of fuel as it barely corresponds to any change in the indication and in the case that if there is any and the customer is vigilant enough to notice it, he would simply say that those were idling losses.

So, the question we asked our technician didn't create any ruckus, but everyone got to know the trick and now all were stealing in mass. And we stand guilty for for this misadventure of this unjustified curiosity. Here's how it is done, so save yourselves (only for Suzuki built vehicles) - the fuse box underneath the hood situated adjacent to the battery and in close proximity to the left upper strut mounting, has an array of fuses among which one of them belongs to the fuel pump. This fuse would be removed and by-passed through some small wires when in ignition off condition. After the wires were put into terminals of the fuse, the fuel line form the low pressure pump to the high pressure pump was disconnected and was put into a bottle. When the ignition is turned on the fuel just rushed into the bottle and in no time filled it up. The Open spaces in the engine bay due to the smaller engines enable for a relative ease of stealing, especially the Suzuki cars that have K12M units (Baleno, Swift etc) and the 1.5L Brezza, S-cross, Ertiga and XL6, the open spaces in engine bays allow to place a one gallon engine oil container exactly beneath the fuel line. The only car that was packed completely underneath the hood was the S-cross 1.6, which even by then was discontinued from production, and it was indeed a nightmare to work upon with very spaces even for the wrenches. My level of detailing may cause this post not to make it up to guys, but anyways I decided to share so atleast you can take a few measures of your own to prevent this. The theft of fuel was finally caught when on the penultimate day of our internship, an S-cross entered with nearly a full tank of petrol, which due to a few scheduling issues was passed on to work on among 3 technicians. The things that unfolded that day are quite funny. So the first guy works on the brakes, replaces engine oil and steals one litre of fuel, the second guy replaces cabin air filter, engine air filter and the wipers and steals another litre of petrol, while the last one worked the battery, terminals and audaciously stole 2 and a half litres of petrol. We on the other side who were watching all of this unfold, were thinking of what to tell them, whether to say that this one's quota is over or steal less!! That's too much. However, as it was the penultimate day we stood there helpless in embarrassment. And the next day the customer noticed quite a dip in the gauge and "boom" there came the crackdown from the management. I hope that it has stopped since then, but I may never know.

This was just a brief part of my whole month of internship, which I thought would provide a few insights in how measured you should be with the service centers. Although the others stories of my internship don't have anything to do with such malpractices and could be informative to some of you, I will stop it here. I look forward to any constructive criticism and valuable feedback on my writing and opinions on whether I should write about my other experiences too.

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