Met cops it for £280,000 after putting the wrong fuel in their cars
It's hardly detective work to find out whether your car takes leadfree petrol or diesel. But it has bamboozled hundreds of police officers in London.

The Met spent nearly £280,000 repairing vehicles filled with the wrong fuel.

Officers have committed this blunder, costing on average £300 to fix, more than 900 times in less than three-and-a-half years. Sarah Teather, Liberal Democrat MP for Brent East, urged officers to be more careful.

“The public will be incredulous to learn that tough policemen who spend their days fighting crime don't seem to know how to fill up a petrol tank,” she said. “This kind of foolish bungling is costing us serious money.

“If you borrowed a friend's car, you would ask what type of fuel it takes and then return it in one piece. The Met need to learn to take the same care of expensive equipment bought for them by the taxpayer.” Ms Teather used freedom of information laws to obtain details of how frequently the fuel mistakes were happening.

The Met admitted that there were 131 such instances during the last six months of 2006, costing £35,331. In 2007, there were 253, costing £73,889. It happened 287 times in 2008 leaving a bill for £84,992, while in the first 275 days of last year there were 241 wrong fuel incidents costing £83,638. The force stressed that its vehicles were filled up 310,000 to 340,000 times a year, or on average between 860 and 933 times a day.

A spokesman added: “The Metropolitan Police operates a vehicle fleet of 6,500 vehicles. It has over 33,000 police officers. The vehicle fleet is made up of owned, leased and daily hire vehicles of ranging fuel types.”

Motoring groups had some sympathy with the difficulties that officers could face at the petrol pump, especially as they are likely to drive different cars and vans.

Paul Watters, of the AA, said: “The police have got a difficult job to do and they are probably more worried about doing it rather than filling up their cars. Sadly, in hindsight, the mistake can be quite a costly one.” Range Rover Vogue ‘17 TDV6

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Quote:

Paul Watters, of the AA, said: “Business is good, the new holiday home in Spain is great this time of year, and I have a few thousand gallons of diesel & Petrol that i can sell you on the cheap if you meet me by the dustbins round back...”

Guess thats us tax payers footing the bill for another police blunder

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Next time you see a police car have a look at the fuel filler cover - all the cars in Central Scotland Region force have a label that tells them what fuel to put in, stuck on the cover. Maybe the Met Officers are yellow/black colour blind or cannot read.......... 2020 Pangea Green 1st Edition D240 New Defender 110 is here and loving it
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There was a big yellow "Diesel" sticker inside the filler cap of my old MY06, still filled it up with unleaded in Bradford once!  purple people eater

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