Diesel Fuel Mix-Up At Holbrook Speedway Leads To Car Breakdowns

HOLBROOK, NY – Linda Magliaro filled up her tank with regular gas at the Speedway station on Union Avenue in Holbrook around 11:30 a.m. Wednesday. Or so she thought.

What she actually had in her tank was diesel thanks to a fuel delivery company screwup. A delivery truck put diesel fuel into the station's regular unleaded tank and regular unleaded into the diesel tank early Wednesday, a Speedway spokeswoman told OnSachem.com's Jim Green.

Magliaro's car, like several others that filled up at Speedway Wednesday, broke down. The repairs to Magliaro's car cost over $600, but she says Speedway was "very quick to get back to me and remedy the situation."

Magliaro sent Speedway the receipt for the repairs and the company is reimbursing her for the repair expenses and it seems they are doing so for anyone affected by the fuel mix-up. Anyone impacted should call Speedway at 800-643-1948.

"When diesel ends up in a gasoline tank, the car will run for a few miles or so until all the gasoline that's still in the fuel line gets used up," according to a post on Cartalk.com. "At that point, the engine will shut down -- boom. Gasoline engines cannot combust diesel fuel, so the car would stop running."

Magliaro says was able to make it home from the gas station without any issues.

"The car sat for about 2 hours," she says. "When I started it and tried to drive it was not working properly. It was idling strange, wouldn’t accelerate smoothly. I only went a block or two and turned around and went back home. I did not try to drive it to the shop, especially after hearing other people’s cars were completely dying so I had it towed this morning. It was sputtering and kicking out black smoke as well. It felt and sounded like it was about to stall."

As of Thursday night, regular gas remains unavailable at Speedway, but an employee there told Patch it would be shortly.