The problem of company motorists filling their vehicles with diesel instead of petrol or vice versa – which costs industry hundreds of thousands of pounds every year – is predicted to get worse.
Delegates at the Association of Car Fleet Operators’ (ACFO) East Anglia meeting were told by regional chairman Steve Hewett that he knew of two recent misfuelling cases, with only one of the companies able to claim the cost of repairing the damage from insurers.
He said: ‘I would advise companies to get a mis-fuelling clause written into their driver policies, or the problem will get worse.’
Hewett added that if employees are liable for the cost of repairs they can offset it against their own personal tax.
Earlier this month, fleets were advised by Lex Vehicle Leasing to fit clear instruction labels to car filler caps.
The company, which runs a fleet of 123,000 vehicles, is notified of about 20 mis-fuels a month by its customers (Fleet NewsNet, June 3).
Lloyds TSB autolease said its customers were spending tens of thousands of pounds a year on repairing cars filled with the wrong fuel (Fleet NewsNet, April 21).
The issue of fuel management is a hot topic. The Government is currently considering its response to a court decision that it must comply with the European Union Sixth Directive, which blocks companies reclaiming VAT on fuel payments they have reimbursed to staff if the fuel is not bought by a VAT-registered company.
In conjunction with fleet and fuel management company Arval, Fleet News has launched the FuelWise campaign, designed to help fleet decision-makers deal with the impending change.
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