Reports of low quality petrol adding to motorists' woes
The lack of fuel and reports of low quality petrol being pumped at sheds are causing concern among motorists.
The damage incurred, allegedly due to the pumping of low quality petrol, has forced vehicle owners to take their vehicles for repairs and replace parts. These issues have increased maintenance costs for vehicles.
"We are getting complaints of different technical issues after the fuel crisis started," said Prakash Kumar, an engineer at a leading private automobile repair and service centre.
He said vehicles are usually manufactured to be used with Octane 92 or Octane 95, but due to a lack of Octane 95 some motorists have been forced to pump Octane 92 resulting in various complications such as engine wastage and the generation of extra heat in the engine.
Mr Kumar said recent incidents where some vehicles had caught fire were due to the overheating of the engines.
Due to the fuel shortage, staff at fuel sheds were also forced to draw fuel from the bottom of storage tanks where sediment usually gets collected. As a result the sediment gets into vehicle fuel tanks and then the engines. This too could lead to engine wastage.
Mr Kumar said usually staff at fuel sheds did not pump fuel from the bottom of tanks, but due to the shortage these days, they were forced to do so.
Motorists had also complained about the low quality of fuel. One motorist f r om Narammala said petrol he had purchased was mixed with water. His complaint had prompted the
Ceylon Pe t roleum Corporation ( CPC) to dispatch an investigation team to the shed in question.
There was a similar complaint from a shed owner in Galle, and he said he would get in touch with the CPC immediately.
Some motorists had also claimed that the mileage from a litre of petrol too had reduced, but there was no immediate scientific research to prove the allegations.
Mechanical experts too, voiced their con
cerns about the quality of fuel.
"Even though the standards are set by the Sri Lanka Standard Institute (SLSI) there is no facility to check the quality of the fuel. The samples need to be sent to Singapore, but this is an expensive process," one mechanical engineer said.
Mr Ranjan Peiris, an owner of a car sales centre, said use of low quality fuel could damage the injection nozzle and petrol pumps too, and replacements were costly.