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Alarming rise in car fuel pump failures
Service centers in Jakarta are being flooded by hundreds of cars that have suffered fuel pump failures thought to have been caused by contaminated subsidized gasoline
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ervice centers in Jakarta are being flooded by hundreds of cars that have suffered fuel pump failures thought to have been caused by contaminated subsidized gasoline.
Car owner Rida said Friday that she had brought her new Hyundai Vega to the company’s service center because the engine wouldn’t start.
“It turned out that the fuel pump was broken. However I must wait indefinitely for the spare parts because there is a supply shortage,” she said.
An employee at a Hyundai service center said about 30 customers had come to the center with broken fuel pumps in the past two weeks.
The woman, who requested anonymity, said all of the customers said they had been filling their cars with subsidized Premium gasoline produced by state owned oil and gas company PT Pertamina.
An employee at a Toyota service center said new fuel pumps would not arrive until Friday next week.
“Every day for the past two weeks we have received one or two cars with this problem,” he said, adding that all of the customers had been buying Premium gasoline.
There has been a 300 percent increase in demand for Toyota fuel pumps in Greater Jakarta from mid June, according to the company’s official website. Suzuki reported demand for its fuel pumps had increased by 400 percent this month.
Another car owner, Yudha, said his car had refused to start two days after he had filled it up with Premium. Yudha said he had been able to buy a new fuel pump for his 1993 Mercedes on the same day.
“After my car fuel pump was replaced, the engine problem went away,” Yudha said.
He said he had heard news that taxis were suffering fuel pump failures but that he never expected the same trouble would befall his car.
Thousands of taxis in Jakarta have broken down since the beginning of last month allegedly due to poor quality gasoline.
About 1,400 Blue Bird Group taxis have suffered fuel pump failures since June, and 1,200 PT Express Trasindo Utama taxis had broken down for the same reason as of last week.
On Tuesday, 50 taxis of PT Gamya Taksi Group were sidelined with broken fuel pumps.
The Committee for Leaded Gasoline Phaseout announced Friday that low-quality gasoline was likely behind the trouble.
The committee announced that the fuel pumps were being damaged by a build up of zinc and other contaminants found in Premium gasoline.
“We have found that Pertamina is not doing enough to monitor its supply,” Ahmad Safrudin, the committee’s coordinator, told reporters.
Ahmad said Pertamina checked its gasoline for contaminants at its refineries but not at loading terminals or gas stations.
“We assume that loading terminal operators are not removing zinc and gas station operators are not cleaning their tanks every six months as regulations stipulate,” he said, claiming that the NGO had learned the information from a source within Pertamina.
The study showed that seven of the 20 car service centers it surveyed in Jakarta had received cars with zinc-contaminated fuel pumps.
Pertamina spokesman Basuki Trikora Putra denied that the fuel pumps had been damaged by low quality gasoline distributed by his company.
“There are certain cars that can’t use low-octane gasoline because it will damage their engines,” he said, adding that Pertamina tested the quality of its gasoline at four loading terminals and 40 gas stations in Greater Jakarta last week.
“The results were good and everything was in line with our standards. However, we are still awaiting the results of another study conducted by the Energy and Mineral Resources Ministry on taxis,” he said.
(ipa/rch)
