Caltex has apologised to customers affected by a fuel mix up at an Otago petrol station that left motorists with the wrong type of fuel in their tank.
On December 14, diesel was put in the underground unleaded 91 tank, and vice versa, at the Milton Caltex station.
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"This is highly unfortunate and we are investigating what happened," Caltex spokesperson Jeremy Clarke said in a statement to Newshub.
"As soon as we were made aware of the mistake, we quarantined both tanks, emptied, cleaned and refilled them with the correct fuel."
Otago man Dan Love was one of the many affected by the mix up, filling his motorcycle tank with diesel wrongly marked as 91.
"I got about five kilometres and realised the bike was losing power and there was lots of white smoke," Mr Love told Stuff.
Mr Love said staff apologised when he went back to tell them what happened, but then told him to refer it to his insurer.
Mr Clarke said the company would be looking to cover the costs incurred by affected customers.
"While we would not expect any long term damage to vehicles we'd encourage any motorist who refuelled for Unleaded 91 or Diesel at Caltex Milton between Friday 14th December and Monday 17th December who have noticed any performance issues in their vehicle to contact the service station whereby details on next steps can be provided to assist with any vehicle checks," he said.
"In most cases, checks may include emptying the fuel tank and flushing the fuel lines, to which we will be looking to cover the costs incurred.
"We apologise for any inconvenience to our customers that this product mix has created."
Newshub.
