Petro-Canada warns of water in premium gasoline at Waterdown Hwy. 6 location

Waterdown's Chelsea Henricks was on her way to work on July 8, when she stopped at Petro-Canada at Clappison's Corners and filled up the tank of her Mercedes with $75 of premium gasoline.

She was merging onto the Toronto-bound Highway 403, when her car stopped accelerating.

I had to jump over three lanes of traffic to get onto the shoulder and all of a sudden everything in my car started flashing," she said. It was not a very fun time."

While she was stranded on the side of the highway, she noticed several other vehicles - mostly German-made requiring premium gasoline - appeared to have experienced the same issue and had pulled over.

There were cars all over the highway on the side of the road who had just filled up," she said.

The culprit? Water in the gasoline.

Henricks' car was towed to Canadian Tire in Waterdown, where a surprising amount of water was discovered when the tank was drained.

They said the amount of gas that was in it was probably just the gas that I already had in my tank and it was basically just water that I filled it up with," she said, noting the sample they took from her tank was believed to be about 90 per cent water.

Mita Adesanya, a spokesperson for Petro-Canada's parent company Suncor, said in an email the company is aware of a potential issue with our premium fuel grades at the Petro-Canada located at 475 Highway 6 in Waterdown."

She said the issue occurred following heavy rainfall on July 8, when rainwater may have entered the fuel tank.

When the issue was identified, we immediately closed the impacted pumps," she said. We take any potential impact to our fuel quality very seriously and are working directly with any impacted customers.

We apologize for any inconvenience this has caused."

Henricks said the mechanics believe her vehicle has escaped any long-term issues, but she does expect the bill to be close to $1,000. She has contacted Petro-Canada and believes the company will be paying for repairs.

Adesanya said any customers who feel they may have been impacted are asked to call the company's customer service team at 1-800-668-0220.