Errol Crosbie alleges a diesel pump at Asda in Hayes was contaminated with petrol when he filled up his £17,500 diesel Audi
A furious driver claims ‘contamination’ at an Asda petrol station destroyed his £17,500 car’s fuel system – leaving him with a £5,500 bill.
Errol Crosbie alleges a diesel pump at Asda in Hayes was contaminated with petrol, and has now gone four months without his diesel Audi Q5 due to a feud with Asda over who should pay for repairs.
The father-of-three claims he filled up at the station at 10.20am with £79.03 of diesel on May 24 – and he has a receipt, bank statement and CCTV footage to prove it.
But when the car broke down on May 26, Mr Crosbie was informed by his Audi garage in Brentford that his car was ‘full of petrol’.
The 43-year-old is adamant that Asda’s Hayes station is the only place he filled up in May.
The supermarket said they investigated and found that on the day Mr Crosbie visited more than 700 customers filled up with diesel with no problem.
This left them ‘at a loss’ as to how it could have occurred at their station.
All the while Mr Crosbie says his motor, which he has owned for just six months, is still sitting in the Audi garage awaiting repair.
Audi confirmed that they discovered the ‘incorrect fuel type’ present in Errol’s engine but were unable to speculate on how it got there.
Mr Crosbie, from West Drayton, Greater London, said: ‘I filled up as normal at the Asda in Hayes with £79.03 of diesel and drove to visit my mum in hospital and pick up my son from school. Everything seemed to be fine.
When the car(pictured) broke down on May 26, Mr Crosbie was informed by his Audi garage in Brentford that his car was ‘full of petrol’
‘Two days later everything seemed to be fine during the day. I picked my son up from school and then I drove about 200 yards down the road then the car cut out.
‘I thought it might have been me, I started it up and then it did exactly the same thing again. It stopped in the middle of the road.’
Mr Crosbie said he took the car to the Audi garage on Great West Road in Brentford on Saturday, with it being bank holiday they said they would be in touch on the following Tuesday.
He claims an Audi garage spokesman asked whether he had filled the car with petrol or diesel and if the latter, to contact the place where he bought the fuel from.
Mr Crosbie said: ‘In the last four weeks I’d only been to one place to fill up – Asda in Hayes.
‘No one in their right mind fills up and then goes and fills up again after 150 miles. I can tell you every place I went to in those 48 hours after filling up at Asda.’
The father-of-three claims he filled up at the station at 10.20am with £79.03 of diesel on May 24 – and he has a receipt, bank statement and CCTV footage to prove it
Mr Crosbie, a driver and technician, said he then called Asda’s head office and claims he was told there was ‘no way’ the pump could be responsible as there’d been no other complaints.
Mr Crosbie claims he waited three days for a manager to return his call who vowed to investigate and also contacted Asda’s CEO directly.
He said: ‘I wasn’t getting anywhere so I emailed the CEO, then they started to do something.
‘I’ve also got in touch with a mediator company for their assistance with all the correspondence.
‘I received an email saying I’m not on the CCTV footage, and that they’d gone even further back in it to check but I wasn’t on, and that it was a silver Mercedes Benz that had been at the pump that day.’
Later that month Mr Crosbie said he received an email from Asda saying they ‘do not accept liability for the damage caused to the vehicle by the presence of the wrong fuel.’
Mr Crosbie said: ‘I have written letters to Asda saying that I intended to take legal action. I have all the evidence I need.
‘Their legal team told me they would check the CCTV and it could take up to three months.
‘Eventually I had a call from Asda to say they would like to apologise for the information originally given to me about the CCTV, and that I was on the footage and that it had been ten or 11 minutes out of sync.
‘But they’d told me that they had checked it thoroughly, so I’m sure they would have picked it up.
The 43-year-old is adamant that Asda’s Hayes station is the only place he filled up his Audi in May
‘They provided me with a copy of the CCTV. You can see me on there, filling up my car with the diesel pump.
‘I’ve got all this evidence. I’ve got the receipt, my debit card statement and the CCTV. I have videos from Audi showing the damage to my car.’
Asda offered Mr Crosbie a ‘good will gesture’ of a £50 Asda gift card as an apology for the CCTV mix up.
But that only enraged him further – and he says he sent it straight back to them when it arrived in the post.
Mr Crosbie said: ‘When they offered it to me I said, ‘are you taking the p**s? Do they think I want to go in an Asda store ever again? £50 is an insult.
The receipt showing Mr Crosbie refilled his Audi at a diesel pump
‘I got it in the post and sent it back to them the next day.’
Four months down the line, Mr Crosbie says he is ready to take his issue to small claims court.
He said: ‘I’ve got at least 40 emails from them, not including the ones I’ve sent to them.
‘Asda are now saying my insurance company should pay the bill for the car. What they are trying to do is waste my time and fob me off.
‘So I’m taking it to the small claims court. It will cost me £500 but it’s the only solution.’
And Mr Crosbie says ‘no apology’ can make up for the way he feels about the situation.
‘I’d just bought a car that I’m still paying for, it cost £17,000, and I can’t even use it,’ he said.
‘I’ve said to them, “if you can fix my car we can part ways and you never have to hear from me again” – they’re a multi-billion pound company.
‘I don’t want compensation, they don’t even need to give me the money back for my fuel.
‘But there’s no way in the world they can repair what they’ve done to me and my family. This is not about money. It’s about respect for a customer.
‘There’s no apology in the world that can fix that – any apology now is an insult.
An Asda spokesman said: ‘We take any complaints of this nature seriously and acted quickly to investigate the matter.’ Pictured: Asda in Hayes
‘If I have to go without a car for another couple of months while I got through small claims court then fine.’
An Asda spokesman said: ‘We take any complaints of this nature seriously and acted quickly to investigate the matter.
‘Our investigation found that on the day of Mr Crosbie’s visit over 700 customers filled up with diesel, but no issues were found and no other complaints received.
‘With that in mind, we’re at a loss to understand how this alleged contamination could have occurred at our petrol station.
‘We have apologised to Mr Crosbie for the confusion over the CCTV footage and for this we have offered a gesture of goodwill.’
An Audi spokesman said: ‘Whilst we sympathise with Mr Crosbie’s unfortunate predicament, our technicians have confirmed that the cause of this problem is use of the incorrect fuel type for this car.
‘As such it would be inappropriate for us to speculate about third party liability.’
Asda offered Mr Crosbie a ‘good will gesture’ of a £50 Asda gift card as an apology for the CCTV mix up