{"id":607072,"date":"2026-04-16T02:55:13","date_gmt":"2026-04-16T02:55:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/607072\/"},"modified":"2026-04-16T02:55:13","modified_gmt":"2026-04-16T02:55:13","slug":"drivers-left-with-damaged-vehicles-after-fueling-up-at-south-edmonton-station-edmonton","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/607072\/","title":{"rendered":"Drivers left with damaged vehicles after fueling up at south Edmonton station – Edmonton"},"content":{"rendered":"

Fueling up one\u2019s vehicle is typically an uneventful activity\u00a0 \u2014 but that isn\u2019t the case for a handful of auto owners who recently bought gas at a southeast Edmonton station.<\/p>\n

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Several drivers had their vehicles die \u2014 some, within minutes of stopping at a gas station in the Summerside area.<\/p>\n

They all fueled up at the Esso<\/a> gas station and Circle K convenience store at the corner of Ellerslie Road and Summerside Drive over the past 24 hours, and said shortly afterwards, their vehicles stopped running.<\/p>\n

Global News spoke to four owners on Wednesday and as of publishing, had received messages from more with similar stories.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m so pissed off right now,\u201d said Almira Acla, whose son\u2019s car stopped working shortly after he fueled up at the gas station at 8403 Ellerslie Rd.<\/p>\n

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He managed to limp the car to a parking lot where Acla said her son encountered another driver in the same situation.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey were thinking there\u2019s water in the fuel or something like that,\u201d she said, explaining the car would run for a bit, and then die. \u201cWe don\u2019t know what really happened but they were thinking something (was) wrong, because it\u2019s the same issue. It\u2019s just stopped right away.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Drivers wondered if it was bad gas and word quickly spread in a Summerside community Facebook group. That\u2019s where resident Emily Kucher first heard about the issues.<\/p>\n

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\u201cCars isn\u2019t starting, cars shuddering when starting, lots of people like, dead on the drive coming home, lots of people filled up last night and are now dead this morning,\u201d Kucher said.<\/p>\n

She was at home scrolling her phone Wednesday morning when she came across the post and saw comments from several people she knew, indicating the issue began Tuesday night.<\/p>\n

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\u201cAn acquaintance filled up last night and her husband\u2019s car didn\u2019t start this morning,\u201d Kucher said. \u201cThey went to their mechanic and it looks like the gas is cut with water somehow \u2014 so whether it was contaminated, we don\u2019t know.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kucher texted her husband, warning not to fuel up at the neighbourhood Esso on the way home \u2014 but was too late.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe responded, \u2018Well, what do you mean? Cause I just left there.\u2019 And I was, like, \u2018Well that\u2019s not good.’\u201d<\/p>\n

Their car broke down a block from home.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe stopped at the stop sign and tried to move forward and the whole thing just kind of shuddered and gave up.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kucher said it\u2019s thrown a frustrating wrench in their lives and calls to the gas station has not yielded any answers so far.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not going to be cheap to get this fixed. We have a baby, we\u2019re very busy, we need the second car for my husband\u2019s work and stuff like that, so yeah \u2014 super inconvenient, super frustrating.\u201d<\/p>\n

A service manager at\u00a0Kross Mitsubishi in south Edmonton said as of Wednesday afternoon, five vehicles whose drivers say they fueled up at the Esso were brought to the dealership to be fixed, and two more were on the way.<\/p>\n

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The dealership said it took fuel samples from the gas tanks and all showed clear signs of separation. The dealership said there appeared to be a significant amount of water in the mix, making up as much as half of the sample.<\/p>\n

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One of the customers who had their vehicle towed to the dealership told Global News his repair quote is about $2,000.<\/p>\n

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Water in a gas tank is a serious problem, according to auto experts<\/a>. It disrupts the internal combustion process and when mixed with gasoline, can create a corrosive mixture damaging to various components of the fuel system, resulting in poor engine performance, reduced fuel efficiency, and even engine failure.<\/p>\n

Global News reached out to Couche-Tard, which owns Circle K, who said it was \u201caware of a small number of customer concerns\u201d related to the Summerside Esso location and the retailer was taking the matter seriously.<\/p>\n

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\u201cWe have not identified any confirmed issues with the fuel supply. That said, we are continuing to review the situation and are working with the appropriate partners to ensure everything meets our quality and safety standards,\u201d said a statement from Couche-Tard media relations.<\/p>\n

Global News reached out to Imperial Oil about the situation. The oil corporation said it sold of all its retail sites in 2016 to third-party companies like Couche-Tard, 7-Eleven and other retailers and now only sells fuel (branded and unbranded) to wholesalers across the country.<\/p>\n

The pumps at the gas station were closed Wednesday afternoon and a fuel pump maintenance company was on site.<\/p>\n

A manager at the Esso station wouldn\u2019t give an interview but told Global News off-camera the station monitors for water in their fuel tanks and no alarms have gone off recently.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs part of our standard procedures, fuel quality is closely monitored, and we have initiated additional checks at the site to verify the integrity of the fuel system,\u201d Couche-Tard said.<\/p>\n

Couche-Tard said affected customers should contact its customer service team.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t&copy 2026 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Fueling up one\u2019s vehicle is typically an uneventful activity\u00a0 \u2014 but that isn\u2019t the case for a handful…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":607073,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[229115,45,49,48,1849,229116,16000],"class_list":{"0":"post-607072","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-business","8":"tag-bad-gas","9":"tag-business","10":"tag-ca","11":"tag-canada","12":"tag-consumer","13":"tag-esso","14":"tag-gasoline"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/607072","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=607072"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/607072\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/607073"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=607072"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=607072"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=607072"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}