Three days after my diesel mondeo had been in the garage to be emptied of petrol (silly boy!) the hose from the tank to the filter (the one used to pump out the tank) worked loose at the engine end and sprayed out £27 worth of diesel over about 4 miles. A lot went on my tarmac drive which has a hole in it now. I hold the garage liable, they disagree. Would I win in the small claims court? How often do fuel hoses work loose? (never in my experience - but what's yours?) After the nice AA man clicked it back properly it hasn't happened again.
All thoughts welcome.
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I think its just an unfortunate coincidence that youve now got a nice hole in your drive, as diesel isn't corrosive like that. I worked in a filling station for 5 years and you wouldn't believe the amount of diesel on the floor round the pump, but the tarmac suffered no ill-effects.
I also sprayed it up myself a couple of times when filling up cans (nice), but it didn't even irritate the skin. Mind you, it didn't taste very nice.
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Doesn't the oil in it eat the tarmac type drives? I dropped a bottle of oil once near the garage. Let's just say, 2 years later, you can still see the splatter pattern!
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Adam
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If there was biodiesel in it, it could definitely do that. If you ever get biodiesel on a tarmac driveway, you need to chuck sand on it immediately and pour hot water over it to try & float it up off the tarmac, which it will effectively dissolve in a short while. Also, never let it get on your paintwork without wiping it off immediately.
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andymc
Vroom, vroom - mmm, doughnuts ...
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I think you will find that Diesel rots tarmac at a quite alarming rate. In fact if you ever deliver tarmac or work with it then you will find Diesel is the only stuff to get it off and keep things clean.
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Take some diesel, a part of your driveway you don't mind losing, a camera, and experiment. Pour some diesel on and keep an eye on it, taking pictures. If it's obviously softened, then it looks like you have a case against the garage.
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I guess the place I worked at didn't have normal tarmac on the floor. All I remember was it was black and slippy when wet.
Back-peddling over.
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As devil's advocate I think you would lose.
4 miles of diesel sprayed roads. You don't notice.
You park on drive, dripping diesel . You don't notice.
You fill a diesel car with petrol. You don't notice.
Your car is dripping diesel and you don't notice the smell.
My defence would be:
you are careless, don't pay attention , cause a hazard to others (diesel on roads is very dangerous), park on your drive and then do nothing about your car leak.
I would dismiss your case saying you were lucky the police did not charge you for driving a car in a condition likely to cause injury to others..
And even if you get past all that, it takes 3 days for the fault to show after the garage worked on it. Did you catch the fuel line on an obstacle? Or notice the smell of diesel when you left your car?
Or was the hole in your drive caused by something else (a before and after photo would help).
madf
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I worked in a filling station for 5 years and you wouldn't believe the amount of diesel on the floor round
They are concrete bases not tarmac.Diesel spillage usually covered in sand or special grain to soak it up..And to correct diesel is not good for the skin.will irritate and can cause skin problems..dermatitis for one. If you wish to handle diesel be very carefull.Long term damage may result
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Steve
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Cant answer your question apart from fuel lines can work loose.
Diesel is as bad as petrol for destroying tarmac.Though would have thought if garage problem..It would have occured within first day you took vehicle back/rather than 3 days after??
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Steve
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Two points:
On one hand the one time I had an injector reprogrammed on my TDCi the technician forgot to connect the return pipe, within a couple of miles I could smell diesel, approx half an egg cup had leaked onto the top of the engine, it smelt very strongly. therefore how you could not smell 27 quids worth is beyond me!!!
On the otherhand it seems to me to be too much of a coincidence that the pipe in quesion should work loose just after have had work done by a garage that would involve removing this pipe (are you sure that this is the case?) accordingly, even though your judgement can be questioned due to both filling up with petrol and subsequently not smelling the leaking diesel I don't think you should be further penalised for what, circumstantially at least, seems to be a mistake by the garage. Accordingly I suggest that you persue it.
Regards.
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