$5,000 to $10,000 for repairs<\/a>,” Friedlander said.<\/p>\nFor some drivers, the situation was even worse. Patrick lives down the road from the Circle K on Palm Beach Boulevard and says his car started experiencing problems before he had to get a new car.<\/p>\n
“We took the spark plugs out; they looked kind of burnt, like corroded a little bit,” Patrick said. “I bought new spark plugs, new coils for the car, but I was still having the same issue. It wasn’t until I took it to Firestone. I had them clean the fuel system, do an oil change, all that stuff, and it was still having the problem.”<\/p>\n
Patrick says he was hoping to hold on to that car a little bit longer. “But when you’re having issues like that, you’re just throwing money at trying to fix the issue,” Patrick said.<\/p>\n
Experts say one of the most important things drivers can do starts right at the pump. Whether it’s a paper receipt or a credit card transaction, proof you bought gas could make or break your claim.<\/p>\n
Friedlander says drivers should first file a claim through Circle K’s dedicated hotline before turning to their own insurance. “Ideally, you don’t necessarily want to file a claim, and you hope that Circle K will step up and take care of this,” Friedlander said.<\/p>\n
If drivers do have to turn to their own insurance, comprehensive coverage may help pay for repairs. “You do need to have proof, validation that you actually purchased your gas at a station that falls under the provisions of this bad gas claim,” Friedlander said.<\/p>\n
Friedlander says drivers who believe they were impacted should also file a complaint with the Florida Department of Agriculture.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"FORT MYERS, Fla. (WINK)\u2014After bad gas left some Southwest Florida drivers stranded with costly repairs, many want to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":267023,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[209,211,210,4250,3837,7353,20685,31888,14831,325,115,914],"class_list":["post-267965","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cape-coral","tag-cape-coral","tag-cape-coral-headlines","tag-cape-coral-news","tag-charlotte","tag-collaborator_gen_stories","tag-collier","tag-desoto","tag-glades","tag-hendry","tag-lee","tag-news","tag-state"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/267965","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=267965"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/267965\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/267023"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=267965"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=267965"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=267965"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}