BMW 520 TOURING - FUEL CONTAMINATION TESCO

Honest John Back Room » Motoring discussion
What is life like with your car? Let us know and win £500 in John Lewis vouchers | No thanks
View Threaded
Wed 18 May 2011 14:26
BMW 520 TOURING - FUEL CONTAMINATION TESCO - GJHM11

Put diesel in car on Friday (40 miles left on computer), car was running perfect!!

Saturday pm after approx 35 miles, car lost power had white smoke pouring out back, left for a while and then drove approx 1 mile very slowly.

Then drove car approx 1 hour later- car drove fine again with a mechanic friend in it, he thought it was turbo, but no sirens or warning.

Left car running on drive and revved slightly, car then revved out of control on its own, white smoke everywhere, took keys out of ignition and fortunately friend knew to stall car to stop this continuing, arranged for it to go into bmw, car picked up on tow truck, car still running.

Garage have said Dodgy diesel, have receipts and pursuing with petrol station and insurance.

Car two months out of warranty also.

What do people think, we have been given a quote for 10k to fix !!!!

Reply | Report as offensive | Link
Wed 18 May 2011 14:37
BMW 520 TOURING - FUEL CONTAMINATION TESCO - Roly93

I doubt if it is fuel.

More likely a turbo problem causing the car to run on the vapourised oil from the weeping turbo seals..

Reply | Report as offensive | Link
Wed 18 May 2011 14:42
BMW 520 TOURING - FUEL CONTAMINATION TESCO - gordonbennet

Agreed Roly.

Hope the garage have invited Tesco to send an engineer round to take fuel samples, i doubt they'll view this publicity kindly without proof.

Reply | Report as offensive | Link
Wed 18 May 2011 14:41
BMW 520 TOURING - FUEL CONTAMINATION TESCO - unthrottled
Ah, must be that supermarket diesel causing deposits on the injectors!

Seriously, I don't really see how 'dodgy diesel' could cause an engine to runaway unless it caused injectors to stick open. Sounds like a failed turbo oil seal or diesel has diluted the sump oil from multiple failed DPF regenerations.

With so little of the original diesel left in the tank, the new fuel would have dominated the mixture going to the engine basically as soon as you restarted. If it was petrol, you wouldn't have got 35 miles.

I'm betting the refuelling was a coincidence.

Reply | Report as offensive | Link
Wed 18 May 2011 14:47
BMW 520 TOURING - FUEL CONTAMINATION TESCO - LucyBC

In all the contamination cases I have dealt with the claim is almost never been won unless there are a group of claimants each independent of each other save for where they fueled and each of which has the same experience.

Reply | Report as offensive | Link
Wed 18 May 2011 15:32
BMW 520 TOURING - FUEL CONTAMINATION TESCO - GJHM11

tHANKS FOR YOUR REPLIES, YES INSURANCE COMPANY HAVE TAKEN SAMPLE AND HAVE SENT OFF TO LAB AWAITING RESULT, CERTAINLY DIDNT LOOK LIKE DIESEL.

HAVE RECEIPTS FOR DIESEL AS I ALWAYS FILL UP THERE, I HAD NO WARNING SIGNS AT ALL THOUGH WHICH IS WHY ALTHOUGH AT FIRST WE THOUGHT WAS TURBO, HAVING READ THREADS ON WEB I WOULD OF HAVE SOME SIGNS, LITERALLY RUNNING PERFECT THEN WHITE SMOKE AND LOSS OF POWER, ALSO GARAGE HAVE SAID TURBO STILL SPINNING, WE ARE TWO MONTH OUT OF WARRANTY SO THIS THOUGHT HAS CROSSED OUR MINDS AS WE DID SAY WE WOULD BE LOOKING TO GARAGE AND BMW FOR GOODWILL.

JUST A COMPLETE NIGHTMARE, NO CAR AND VERY LARGE BILL, IF IT IS PROVEN TO BE FUEL- THE SAMPLE TAKEN FROM TANK, IS SAME AS WHAT IS COMING FROM EXHAUST AND ITS NOT DIESEL, NOR IS IT PETROL, HAS AN OIL TYPE BASE TO IT,

IF IT WAS TURBO HOW WOULD THAT GET INTO TANK??

tHANKS

Reply | Report as offensive | Link
Wed 18 May 2011 15:40
BMW 520 TOURING - FUEL CONTAMINATION TESCO - injection doc

Hey GJH11

Good luck and hope it all resolves itself. Was the fuel a slimey dullish colour or even almost black ? Dont loose sight of a sample of the contaminated fuel whatever you do ! these things have a nasty habit of getting lost !! keep one for yourself with a signed witness when its retrieved from vehicle and take loads of photo's.

Hope all goes ok and keep us posted. Sympathise with the nightmare

Reply | Report as offensive | Link
Wed 18 May 2011 15:46
BMW 520 TOURING - FUEL CONTAMINATION TESCO - GJHM11

Thank you, we are just very unsure who to trust really, there does seem to be a difference of opinion as to whether fuel contamination even exists, and turbo's on bmw's do appear to be quite common, however the turbo side is just not ticking all the boxes. The fuel sample was more oil based is all i can say really, it was compared at the time to diesel and it is just not the same at all but neither is it petrol. If it is contamined we are covered by insurance but if its not we then have huge battle with garage and bmw as to what it actually is, the matter is made worse as we still owe finace on the car to bmw and a 10k bill would not be worth mending the car as its prob worth about 13k now.

The fuel came out of tank also? Is there any way oil from engine can get back into fuel tank? We have been told no but i am not really mechanically minded.

Thanks

Reply | Report as offensive | Link
Wed 18 May 2011 15:49
BMW 520 TOURING - FUEL CONTAMINATION TESCO - unthrottled

No, I can't explain how oil would get into the tank.

How have the garage tested the turbo? A leaking oil seal will not stop the turbo from spinning. Have they opened up the intercooler tank to see if it s full of oil?

You see, if the fuel was catastrophically bad, you wouldn't have got 35 miles without problems. There was barely any diesel left in the tank and the addition of more fuel would mix with the old fuel immediately. The fuel system pumps fuel round the fuel system very quickly-and the injectors only draw off a small amount of this.

The only dodgy fuel explanation that I can contrive to fit the symptoms was that the fuel was non-miscible with diesel AND had a lower density so it literally sat on top of the old diesel. I can't reallythink of many substances meeting this criteria.

Reply | Report as offensive | Link
Wed 18 May 2011 15:56
BMW 520 TOURING - FUEL CONTAMINATION TESCO - GJHM11

Ok thanks, i guess we will just have to wait and see, i will ask the questions then, we are just doubtful as so many people have said sounds like turbo, although as i said no warning signs what so ever, no noises, no change just lack of power then smoke.

From the fuel side there are posts and links on here and it is not totally out of the question either. The garage are adamant that it is fuel contamination, i will have to go back and question them. The bill itself is outrageous 10K .

thanks

Reply | Report as offensive | Link
Wed 18 May 2011 16:08
BMW 520 TOURING - FUEL CONTAMINATION TESCO - injection doc

The symptons discribed , certainly with a run away engine are in line with a failed turbo, excess oil passing the seals then the engine runs on the oil ! If the fuel was contaminated when you had turned the engine off the injectors would switch of and engine would stop. Its possible that if the fuel was really bad and wasnt combusting properly then it may have been filling the sump and thats what caused the runaway, unless if it was "contamination" had cause a problem with the DPMF and the vehicle had gone ito regen mode and with odd fuel had thrown a complete wobbler !

Make sure the garage are not getting over excited and selling you a turbo and fuel system as well, may be you need to take a step back and have an independant inspection, sounds a nightmare.

Reply | Report as offensive | Link
Wed 18 May 2011 17:24
BMW 520 TOURING - FUEL CONTAMINATION TESCO - ddr

Whatever the cause, do not on any account pay 10k to fix this, that is a ludicrous sum.

Reply | Report as offensive | Link
Wed 18 May 2011 17:26
BMW 520 TOURING - FUEL CONTAMINATION TESCO - ddr

It all sounds rather suspicious.

I'd take it to another garage and don't mention ANYTHING about your suspcions re misfuelling.

Reply | Report as offensive | Link
Wed 18 May 2011 18:46
BMW 520 TOURING - FUEL CONTAMINATION TESCO - SteveLee

I would be truly flabbergasted if this problem is related to the fuel. even if the fuel is duff, how would it cause the car to rev uncontrollably? Failed turbo seal, overfilled sump, damaged valve stem seals – there are a handful of things that can cause this problem – fuel contamination is not one of them (in my humble opinion).

Reply | Report as offensive | Link
Wed 18 May 2011 19:07
BMW 520 TOURING - FUEL CONTAMINATION TESCO - Collos25

If the fuel was that bad there would be hundreds of vehicles with the same problem all in the same area sounds like a typical BMW turbo problem and the garage are pre empting any warranty claim.

Reply | Report as offensive | Link
Wed 18 May 2011 19:30
BMW 520 TOURING - FUEL CONTAMINATION TESCO - bonzo dog

and the garage are pre empting any warranty claim.

Sounds like it.

Had a problem with my wife's 2 year old car (not BMW) a couple of months ago. Dealership initially said it wasn't a warranty item. When I corrected them they agreed it was but the failure was down to "driver mis-use". Only after I got the manufacturer involved was the claim agreed.

Reply | Report as offensive | Link