Local Facebook groups have been flooded with people complaining about water in their fuel after filling up at Esso (7-Eleven) in Smithers in mid-January.
Holly Peckover got a small amount of gas on a Thursday evening and everything seemed fine driving the following day, she assumes because she still had fuel in her tank from a previous fill-up. However, by Saturday morning, things started to change.
"I went to drive to town, and as soon as I started accelerating up to highway speeds, all of my dashboard lights came on. The engine light was flashing. My dashboard was going crazy, and the vehicle was misfiring and losing acceleration and losing power," she said. "So I pulled over and everything kind of calmed down. The engine light stayed on, so I carried on, and I stayed around 50 kilometres an hour, which did not make people happy on the highway. And then when I left work that day, because it's Saturday evening, night at that point, and I had to get home, so I drove home. The exact same thing happened. As soon as I started accelerating the highway speeds."
She said she felt like she was one of the fortunate ones because she only put $40 in her tank.
"I actually topped up on Sunday with premium fuel, because a mechanic friend of mine said that was a good idea. So I did that, and I took my truck into All Seasons Automotive first thing Monday morning, and they already had two other vehicles in the lot with the same problem at that point, and they diagnosed it, ran diagnostics on it, and it was water in the fuel... but because I had diluted it with premium fuel, all they had to do was add fuel stabilizer to it, so basically anti-freeze to deal with the water. So I was very lucky. My bill was still $192."
She has lodged a complaint with Esso and with 7-Eleven head office, because the convenience store is attached to the gas pumps, however after a couple of weeks, Imperial Oil finally got back to her and said they were not responsible as they are not the operators and suggested she call 7-Eleven again.
She has not heard from 7-Eleven.
The Interior News also reached out to Imperial Oil and received the same response as Peckover.
7-Eleven acknowledged there was a problem and the pumps were down for an unknown period, but the company says all is good now.
"We are pleased to be serving & re-fueling our customers again and are monitoring new fuel supply through routine testing at regular intervals. At any time, customers may contact us at 1-800-255-0711 with questions or concerns."
Head of Petroleum Analysis at GasBuddy Patrick De Haan said situations like this are unusual but not unheard of.
"Contamination does happen from time to time, many stations have water monitoring equipment so they can detect it before it is a problem, but with the recent cold weather, hearing this is not a shock, but it can happen," he added.