Contaminated Fuel

[GuidoT]

Purchased some Tesco fuel about a month ago and it made my car unwell shortly thereafter.

 

Yesterday my car was returned to me and is better again. As the bad petrol was drained, the dealer had to fill up the car again and ironically they used their local petrol station, which was of course Tesco's.

 

I am in the process of completing the Tesco Customer Claim Form and note that they have GAB Robins as the loss adjuster.

 

Has anyone had any experience, good or bad in obtaining payment. I would like to know in advance so that I can decide how adversarial I need to be in my approach.

 

My claim is for about £9K, most of it for car hire.

[Guest tlusnoc]

My claim is for about £9K, most of it for car hire.

 

9k for a months car hire, What did you hire a Ferrari?

[patdavies]

Possibly mileage?

[GuidoT]

Anyway anyone have experience with claiming back from Tesco.

[Guest tlusnoc]

Before offering any advice, I would be interested in knowing how you arrive at a figure of 9k and mostly for car hire! After all this will be extremely relevant to your claim.

[GuidoT]

19 days x £400 / day, it is something like a car in your post 2 above. I look forward to what you have to say.

[Guest tlusnoc]

I very much doubt that you would persuade a judge to award you that amount for vehicle hire, unless you can prove that you needed a vehicle of that nature, i.e. the vehicle was part of your business and you hired it out. Then you would be suing for loss of business etc. and not necessarily for the cost of hiring a replacement vehicle. Though you would still need to show and prove evidence of your loss.

 

If it was for your own personal use, then you have to mitigate any potential loss and you would therefore be expected to hire a suitable vehicle for use. Personal/family size etc. would in most cases determine this.

[GuidoT]

The measure of damages is to put you back in the same position you would have been had the breach not occurred.

 

Therefore, I hired an identical car to that which was filled up with contaminated fuel and in the garage for 19 days. Nothing wrong with that. I even looked around for a competitive rate, some hirers were looking for £700 / day.

[Guest tlusnoc]

The measure of damages is to put you back in the same position you would have been had the breach not occurred.

 

Therefore, I hired an identical car to that which was filled up with contaminated fuel and in the garage for 19 days. Nothing wrong with that. I even looked around for a competitive rate, some hirers were looking for £700 / day.

 

Fixing the damage to the car is putting you back in the same situation, the vehicle hire does not really come into the equation other than you required alternative transport whilst yours was off the road.

 

As I said above, you have to mitigate any loss. They will argue and rightly so that you could have hired a Ford KA or similar or if you have a large family something that would accommodate said family.

 

Sorry, but in my honest opinion you are on a loser with this.

[GuidoT]

Fixing the car solely does not put me back in the same position, what about the 19 days where I would not have had MY car?

 

Why should I hire a Ford KA when it is their breach that caused my car to be put off the road? My mitigation duty does not extend to putting myself in a worse position.

 

I could understand if I had gone away and hired a helicopter to travel around, then fair enough I would not be mitigating.

 

Anyway we are unlikely to agree on the point.

 

As my first post, I was looking for some advice from anyone who had experience on dealing with Tesco generally and not on the merits of my case.

[Guest tlusnoc]

I understand where your coming from, however I was only pointing out the likely outcome of any claim you make and believe me the loss adjuster will not approve those payments. Therefore you will need to make a claim if you wish to try and recoup the hire charges over and above a reasonable amount i.e. £200 p.w. maximum in my opinion

 

Please post the eventual outcome and good luck.

[GuidoT]

BUMP - anyone had any experience with Tesco?

 

Anyway by way of update, the claim finished up at £14K and was issued about 10 days ago.

 

I spoke with the loss adjuster today to find out if they had received it and they confirmed they had and said because it is a bit higher than the other claims, they need to investigate a bit more and said they would come back to me in the next few days.

 

They were ever so nice, unlike our friends at the banks.

[GuidoT]

Received a cheque today for £14,264.75 (everything I claimed for) they even paid for my time and 2 full tanks of petrol, job done.

 

I wish the banks would be so generous.

[pinkduchess]

no way!!!!

 

I remember laughing about this when I heard how much you were claiming for car hire.

 

I too had a claim & asda paid out no problem.

 

well good on you if its true

[GuidoT]

I am pleased it entertained you, yes it is true.

 

I was surprised they paid everything without question.

[patdavies]

 

I was surprised they paid everything without question.

 

This because they won't be paying it. They will aggregate all the claims that they have paid and recharge the fuel supplier - who had better hope his insurance is up-to-date.

[GuidoT]

Tesco's insurers, through their loss adjusters, still have an obligation to ensure that the claims are correct, other they face the risk of picking up any differential.

 

I realise that it is likely the Tesco's insurers are likely to (using subrogation rights) claim against the faulty fuel providers insurance - Vopac I think are the suppliers.

 

None of this really matters to me anyway now.

[MrShed]

Excellent result - well done! Shocked as well!!

[patdavies]

Tesco's insurers, through their loss adjusters, still have an obligation to ensure that the claim are claims are correct, other they face the risk of picking up any differential.

 

I realise that it is likely the Tesco's insurers are likely to (using subrogation rights) claim against the faulty fuel providers insurance - Vopac I think are the suppliers.

 

Having some knowledge of how supermarket giants like Tesco write their contracts, I very much doubt that Tesco's insurers are involved in any way, shape or form.

 

The liability will rest with Vopac (and their insurers) for a simple breach of contract. Tesco will simple charge Vopac for their costs consequent to the breach.

 

Tesco's legal department may be working overtime on this, but I suggest that their insurers are sleeping on undisturbed.

 

Whilst you purchased petrol from and claimed against Tesco, don't forget that ASDA are also part of this and they are far bigger than Tesco with similar contracts.

[GuidoT]

Thank you Mr Shed.

 

Hi PatDavies - GAB Robins are Tesco's insurers loss adjusters and they face primary liability. Tesco's insurers are involved the cheque came from GAB Robins.

 

Providing Vopac have insurance, then as I said Tesco's insurers will, using their subrogation rights, pursue Vopac's insurers.

 

Anyway none of this matters I must stop responding.

[GuidoT]

My car is broken again, exactly the same problem, maybe there was still some silicone residue left in the engine.

 

Maybe just a coincidence and caused by something else, I should find out tomorrow.

[pinkduchess]

i thought this thread was dead - lol

 

hope its nothing serious.

[GuidoT]

I resuscitated it, looks like I cannot blame Tesco for this one.

 

Now officially dead.

[the latecomer]

hello...i know this thread is now dead regarding guido's claim but i just read it having had a bit of a journey getting only just under £500 out of tesco/ga robins.they insisted that the service i put the car in for to sort out the problem before Tesco admitted it was due to wear and tear not the fuel and offered me everything else in the claim.this peeved me a bit and i had to contact the chief exec of tesco (twice) and the guardian to resolve it.took nigh on 3 months but just this week got the full settlement...congrats on getting 14k out of them but commiserations about the car...i also had another problem with the car that was possibly or probably linked with the fuel but let that one go.....ok..dead again now

[GuidoT]

TLC,you are living up to your name, my car is now fine only cost £250 to repair. I am pleased you obtained your money eventually.

 

Anyway this thread seems to have more lives than a cat.