Lauren Joffrion filled the gas tank of her 2023 BMW before work on December 9.
When she got off that night, the company’s executive chef said, her car started shaking and acceleration seemed off.
She had trouble starting the car the next morning, and it was still shaking. When she left work that evening, the BMW wouldn’t start. The Gulfport resident called his dad for a ride home and had the car towed the next morning to Galleria BMW in D’Iberville.
The mechanics scratched their heads. They couldn’t figure out what was wrong, she said. Until, that is, Joffrion mentioned that she had filled up at Clark Oils gas station on Beach Boulevard in downtown Biloxi, a bustling location across from the Beau Rivage Resort & Casino.
The mechanics had already checked out another car that had recently refueled at the same Clarks station. The car had been filled with diesel instead of the premium gasoline the owner thought they were buying, Joffrion said. Joffrion had also thought she was filling up with premium gas, but says it turned out to be diesel.
Her car is sitting at the dealership unrepaired, she said, because so far she hasn’t gotten any help from Clark’s to cover the costs. Joffrion pays a rent at the same time.
Diesel will damage gas engines
Galleria operations manager Roger Hudson confirmed that Joffrion’s car needs repairs because it was filled and driven with diesel fuel.
“It causes a car to not run at all or misfires severely,” he said, noting that damage depends on how much diesel was put in the tank and how long the car ran on the wrong fuel.
Joffrion recently took to Facebook to warn others about the problem. She believes a driver put the wrong fuel in Clark’s underground premium gas tank. Her public post has been shared more than 40 times.
One commenter wrote: “Hate to hear this. Happened to me once at another station in Gulfport. Cost hundreds to fix my car.”
Clark Oil, based in Waynesboro, did not return a phone call from the Sun Herald. The company operates convenience stores with gas pumps in Mississippi and Alabama.
When she got no help from Clark’s, Joffrion said she called attorney Matthew Schloegel of the Gulfport law firm of Healy & Jordan. Schloegel said his firm has handled similar cases in the past.
“These things happen,” he said. – The drivers get confused. They are people. If they put (fuel) in the wrong tank, they have insurance for that.”
It’s unclear how long the diesel fuel was apparently flowing from the premium pump, he said, but he has a second customer who filled up at the same Clark’s station, the other BMW owner who took her car to the Galleria.
He said Clark Oil is in the process of getting him information about the company’s insurance company. However, he is unsure whether the case can be resolved without a lawsuit.
Like Joffrion, he believed the public needed to know about the fuel mixture.
“It’s a high-traffic gas station,” he said. “We believe there are more” who got the wrong gas.
