KARACHI: A rift among car assemblers has emerged as Pakistan Automotive Manufa­cturers Association (PAMA) has claimed that “all the OEMs are facing serious technical issues due to low quality of fuel.”

So far only Honda Atlas Cars Ltd (HACL) has formally lodged a complaint with the Oil and Gas Regulatory Authority (Ogra) about the low quality petrol.

In a letter on Nov 13, PAMA has asked the regulator to check the metal contents (including manganese) in the petrol being marketed against the international standards as assemblers are facing serious technical issues due to low quality of the fuel.

On the issue of manganese content in petrol, PAMA informed the regulator that addition of manganese is meant to boost the Research Octane Number (RON) of the fuel in the process of achieving a targeted number.

There are hazardous technological and environmental repercussions of the metal content in the fuel if used beyond certain safe limit. From the technical stand point, it would impair engine performance in the long run may choke the catalytic convertor thus aggravating pollution level by not blocking/converting the unsafe substances of the exhaust which are hazardous to human health, PAMA said.

The association letter gives an impression that all the original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) are facing serious technical issues due to low quality petrol but market reality is different.

When contacted Indus Motor Company Chief Executive Officer Ali Asghar Jamali told Dawn on Wednesday, “We have not received yet any serious complaints with respect to our Toyota vehicles regarding low quality petrol.”

When contacted, spokesperson of Pak Suzuki Motor Company Limited (PSMCL) did not respond.

However, an authorised dealer of Pak Suzuki said he had not received any complaint of engine knocking or other sort of issues from the customers on petrol quality issues.

Chairman All Pakistan Motor Dealers Association (APMDA), H.M. Shahzad said used cars of three years old models are being imported from Japan and these vehicles have latest engines which are being used by the leading manufacturers.

“So far no owner of used cars has complained about engine knocking or other problems after using petrol of various oil marketing companies,” he claimed.

Oil Companies Advisory Council (OCAC) Chairman Aftab Husain said the refineries and OMCs are supplying petrol according to the government’s specifications.

“We have checked and found that there is no abnormality of high manganese content in petrol,” he said, adding that in Pakistan there is no government cap on manganese in petrol.

“If the Euro II petrol is the specification how come EURO IV designed engine will meet the requirement,” he asked.

He said recently the government has improved the specification of petrol and 92 RON has taken over 87 RON. Higher quality petrol (95 and 97 octane petrol) is also available for consumers’ choice.

Honda Atlas has so far not come out with any reply to the threat given by OCAC which strongly urged Honda to withdraw its complaint about the alleged sale of low-quality fuel in the market or face legal action.

Despite repeated attempts to the relevant official of Honda Atlas did not respond to the calls made by this correspondent.

Honda Atlas reported high manganese content in recently upgraded 92RON, causing three major issues, namely catalyst blocking or chocking of the catalytic converter, engine knock due to low octane quality fuels and adverse human health effects of manganese and specifically blamed three leading OMCs – PSO, Total and Shell. As a result the company had suspended the production of 1.5 Turbo Civic.

Based on the specifications of the VTEC turbo vehicle, 91RON fuel is recommended. It means the vehicle is calibrated to operate on 91RON fuel but has the capability of compensating for lower octane fuel. If this vehicle is operated on less than 91Octane (regardless of the source of the octane improvement), it will knock. This knock will be detected by the knock sensor, and the ignition timing will be delayed to prevent engine damage. If the knock sensor malfunctions, the catalyst plugging may actually be caused by the engine knocking, the OCAC explained.

Published in Dawn, November 16th, 2017