The quality of gasoline in Venezuela, a risk of fire for cars

The deposit of the gasoline The car of the Caritas organization that sister Amarilis Ybarra was driving caught fire while she was driving, on her way to a day of care for the most vulnerable in the state of Zulia, a situation that was repeated this year in another 26 vehicles in the region, as a result of , according to experts, from gasoline contamination.

Amarilis had the help of residents of the area, who prevented the flames from spreading through the vehicle until the fire department arrived.

“We began to pour sand inside, where the gasoline goes (…) and underneath as well, and some neighbors came with fire extinguishers, we took the fire extinguisher out of the office, several fire extinguishers and the firefighters arrived immediately,” he told EFE.

In his opinion, the quality of the gasoline caused the car, which was delivered a few months ago to the organization belonging to the Catholic Church, to catch fire after refueling and the vehicle began to show signs of failure.

Claims with patterns

The general commander of the Fire Department of the Maracaibo Municipality, capital of the Zulia state, Engelberth Atencio, explained to EFE that, from January to mid-April, a total of 26 burned cars were registered.

He indicated that in these accidents there are patterns in which the fire starts in the area of ​​the gasoline pump, or where the fuses are located, which are connected to this system.

“The informative part of the owners who are on the site is taken into account. They themselves tell us that they really see the flame coming out from what is the gasoline pump or else where the rifle (fuses) is”held.

Given these similarities, he said that the Fire Department prepared a report to be sent to the state oil company PDVSA, to determine if, in fact, the quality of the fuel is affecting the gasoline cells of cars.

For his part, Máximo Segundo Castillo, a mechanic with 25 years of experience, pointed out that the “pollution” of gasoline causes the internal filters, both of the pump and of the exterior ones, to collapse and be destroyed, which causes an increase in amp draw, overheats and tends to burn out.

“That’s why the car crashes, burns completely or starts to fail. Sometimes the electrical system has overheated, what they call the pump assembly and from there everything burns completely, the wiring system and the plastic melt and that is when it causes the cars to burn”he explained to EFE.

smell the quality

To date, PDVSA, the state company that governs the gas stations, has not issued an official communication on this situation, but posted a video on its Twitter account, in which they held a plastic container containing gasoline and invited users of a station. service to “smell her” to check the quality of the liquid.

Castillo added that in recent weeks he has received up to seven vehicles a day at his workshop, located in Maracaibo, for battery changes, electrical systems or connectors that are “melt”.

“You have to make a mandatory (change), because the collapse of the pile is the dirt that gasoline has, it is a very cloudy gasoline, with a strong odor, a smell like gas, which people say is a smell like to sewer”he pointed.

He maintained that the temperature of the fuel in some vehicles, scanned in his workshop, has reached 65 degrees, when the normal temperature should range between 10 and 30 degrees maximum.

“First time in my experience that something like this has happened, because it has happened at service stations, where the tanks are contaminated, they fill with water and, to tell you something, a batch of five, six vehicles that arrive with water in the fuel tank and the pump burns out because of the water, but, I mean, that’s fortuitous”he added.

Source: EFE