All regular fuel sold in a particular area comes from the same source, and stored at local distribution centres from which all road tankers draw the same supply and often replenish several different brands of filling stations - they add the brand's aditives when transferring fuel from the road tanker to the filling station.

All fuel sold in the EU has a certain level of additives - the additives do vary by brand but since no brand publishes it's list of additives it's impossible to know if there's any significant different or which brands are better.

Any brand can, and sometimes does, have an issue with a contaminated batch - evidenced by everyone who filled up from the same place on the same day getting the same problem - but it could well be a different brand next time.

Unlike petrol, diesel is easily contaminated by water which easily occurs by condensation of ambient air on the inside of the fuel tank - better but not eliminated with plastic tanks rather than steel and better but not eliminated by keeping the tank full and frequently refilled rather than kept virtually empty.

Regular servicing and replacement of the fuel filter is vital for diesels.

thank you all, I have not scrimpted on servicing, it was last fully serviced in July including all new fuel and oil filters. have done about 70000 miles since. the car has been fine for a week since the incident, so I will follow the rule of "if it aint broke don't fix it".. and not mess with it. I buy one treatment of millers additive since although it seems the forum thinks the benefits are possibly over stated, it isn't going to do any harm

I have an idea that, just as with extended oil change intervals and sealed for life (pause for laughter) gearboxes, many makers have extended Diesel fuel filter replacements to too long intervals for use in the real world.

We had fueling issues affecting our MAN lorries, one after another brought up fuel supply problems on the dash (more specific version of the anonymous EML), a visit to the dealer and a new filter saw the problem rectified on each, those intervals have now been revised to more frequent, result no more problems...though the head mechanic did show me how to and how much to drain the fuel sediment bowl which he advised to do fairly regularly between services.