The thunderstorms in the past two days did not spare the Hauts-de-France in terms of precipitation. Despite Drought raging in the region, the fall of so much water in such a short time is not necessarily beneficial. The soil does not have time to absorb all this rain and this causes flooding, as was the case in a Leclerc service station, in Saint-Amand, near Valenciennes, in the North.
That the service station looks like a swimming pool should have alerted motorists who showed up there on Sunday morning. It seems not. Although the place was covered with several centimeters of water, an as yet undetermined number of customers still decided to refuel their vehicles. In addition to having had wet feet, many had the disappointment of seeing their car break down a few minutes later. Of course, diesel does not mix well with water.
“At the same time, you have to be a little stupid”
“I fill up my car, I go to the Stop sign, my car starts to smoke black and stalls, there’s no way to start it”, testifies Lucie on Facebook. Ditto for Barbara, who admits all the same having made “the mistake of putting in diesel when the pump was flooded”. On his side, the management of the hypermarket concerned takes note of “malfunctions encountered by customers after having used fuel that day”, and presents its “apologies for the inconvenience caused”, while emphasizing that this is a “context beyond our control . »
If Leclerc promises to make a gesture for his broken down customers, many Internet users are less understanding. “At the same time, you have to be a little stupid,” says Miguel. “Given the station, I wouldn’t have put any gas in,” says Antonella. “You don’t have to be very smart to go and help yourself when you see the state it was in,” insists Val.
In any case, the problem is not trivial and the repairs could well prove to be very expensive. car plus looked into the matter and concluded that “Water is the No. 1 enemy of pumps and other diesel engine injectors”. The damage generally caused is the breakage of the injection pump, the seizing of the injectors, not to mention the emptying and cleaning of the tank. In order not to be out of pocket, our colleagues advised having a bailiff take 2 samples of the implicated fuel if the case were to go to court.