SPRINGFIELD — A manager with the Love’s Family of Companies said the company “is resolving the issue with impacted customers” who told News Center 7 they believed their vehicles were breaking down because of a mistake in the fuel used at the Love’s station off Interstate 70 in Clark County.
“On Nov. 11 Love’s was notified that there was an isolated incident in a regular unleaded tank at its Springfield location,” Caitlin Jensen, external communications manager for Love’s told News Center 7′s Mike Campbell in an email Wednesday evening. “The issue was immediately addressed at the location and Love’s is resolving the issue with impacted customers.
“If customers believe they were impacted by this, they can contact our customer service team at comments@loves.com or 800-655-6837.”
Campbell and a News Center 7 photographer went into the Love’s station on Wednesday to find answers about what might have happened. They were given a corporate phone number, which rang to an answering machine, and asked to leave the property.
Campbell spoke with a woman who said her family’s truck needs several repairs after it got the wrong fuel put in it at the Love’s station on Friday, Nov. 11.
“I made it halfway home, it started bogging down real bad,” said the woman, who couldn’t be identified because of her sensitive employment field.
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She was stranded in the dark with her three young daughters and her truck had to be towed. She said she and her husband returned to the Love’s station the next day because they were suspicious the station was to blame for the break down.
“We went up there, it read ‘unavailable’ on all the unleaded gas tanks,” she said.
The couple told News Center 7 the Love’s employees were tight lipped, but took their information to the referred to a risk management company. Others at the station told them they weren’t the only ones to complain and that it appeared a delivery driver dropped a tanker full of diesel fuel in the unleaded gas tanks.
Investigators with the Clark County Auditor’s Office said they believe at least 15 people have been affected by the fuel issue, ending up with damaged vehicles.
“They started receiving phone calls, the people on duty immediately shut the pumps down,” said Marc Holt, director of the auditor’s office Weights & Measures Bureau.
Holt said it looked like a diesel delivery made Friday evening was to blame.
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“Somehow or another it was dropped into the 87 octane tank,” he said.
The woman and her husband contacted the county auditor’s office to complain. They have also talked to Love’s risk management representatives, but while there have been promises made to help pay for draining the tank on the truck, their repair shop says there is much more repair work needed.
Holt told News Center 7 he has seen similar situations four times across the county in the last four years.
“You have no clue, no idea something is about to happen until you are down the roads a ways,” Holt said.
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