And, according to the journalist who brought the scam to the notice of the public, 'there's little visible activity' on the part of the authorities in trying to eliminate it.
The matter involves rogue traders adding up to 10 percent of cheaper home heating kerosene to petrol, which causes a build up of carbon in the engines, inflicting irreparable damage.
Padraic Deane, publisher of Autotrade.ie — and the Irish juror on the World Engine of the Year Awards, who highlighted the issue some weeks ago, has now increased five-fold the estimate of damaged engines, which is mainly happening to smaller engined cars because they mostly are petrol engines.
"The Revenue Commissioners, Customs and Excise and gardai have all been investigating petrol stretching," Padraic Deane says. "There is a significant fuel contamination issue, but there is little visible activity taking place to stop activity that's costing hundreds of motorists thousands of euro each in damage to their cars. If the price of petrol looks too good to be true then, in this case, it probably is."
The scam is worse in the west, border counties, and parts of the midlands, and mostly involves operators new to the petrol business who take short term leases on independent forecourts. The message is, buy from outlets run by large and established retail chains.
