Imagine a surprise car repair bill for thousands of dollars coming from something all of us do all the time: filling up your car at the gas station.
We’ve seen it happen to drivers right here in the Miami Valley.
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The News Center 7 I-Team’s lead investigative reporter, John Bedell, looked into Ohio’s lack of a fuel quality inspection law that most other states have and dug into the latest push to protect your car.
When you stop at a gas station in the Miami Valley, you expect to fill up and move on, not for your car to stop working soon after and need to siphon money from your bank account to get your ride moving again.
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“It was definitely – you could tell that (the engine) was misfiring,” Shaun Desmarais from Mad River Township told the I-Team about an experience he had with tainted gasoline winding up in his car.
Desmarais had filled up at the Speedway in Enon, not far from his home in Clark County, a few years ago.
He said the initial estimate he got to repair the damage the bad gas did to his car at the time was around “$4,000 or $5,000.”
At the time, Speedway told the I-Team a delivery mix-up meant gasoline shipments to four stations in the Miami Valley, including the one in Enon where Desmarais had filled up, were contaminated with diesel. Desmarais said Speedway ended up reimbursing him.
“Anything that touched fuel needed either repaired or replaced,” Desmarais recalled of the work on his car’s fuel system.
In April, News Center 7 talked to several drivers when their cars broke down after filling up at one of two Sunoco stations in West Carrollton and Farmersville.
Water got into the fuel tanks at both stations and contaminated the gas.
Ohio is one of three states, along with Alaska and Nebraska, that do not have statewide fuel quality testing.
Here in Ohio, inspectors in all but one county are only allowed to check the quantity of gasoline at stations. In other words, inspectors test to make sure you get a gallon of gas when the pump says you pumped a gallon of gas. Most of those same inspectors cannot test the quality of gas going into your tank.
Only Summit County, which encompasses Akron, tests fuel quality in Ohio. A unique local government structure there gives county inspectors that authority. They don’t need a state law allowing it.
Ohio lawmakers have tried to pass statewide fuel testing legislation for years. But so far, those efforts at the Statehouse have stalled.
“Ohio is definitely late to the party,” State Senator Willis Blackshear Jr. (D) – Dayton, told the I-team during a recent interview in Columbus. “We’re just one of three states (that doesn’t have statewide fuel quality testing), so obviously the other states felt the need to implement something like this.”
Miami Valley State Senator Willis Blackshear Jr. has restarted that legislative effort.
He’s introduced a bill that would allow every Ohio county the option to create a program for testing fuel quality.
Similar past bills at the Statehouse in Columbus have not made it to the governor’s office. So the I-Team asked Blackshear, “What’s going to make this time any different?”
“Just continue to have advocacy,” Blackshear said in response. “I hate to say it, but when you continue to hear cases of people getting bad gas, that obviously elevates the story a little bit more, puts more eyes on legislation like this. So we just need people to continue to call their lawmakers, have them advocate for something like this being implemented in Ohio. I think it’s very important.”
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The Ohio Council of Retail Merchants (OCRM), the association that represents gas stations and wholesale fuel providers in Ohio, told the I-Team in a statement:
“We certainly understand and respect the intent behind the legislation—ensuring Ohioans have access to reliable, high-quality fuel. However, we believe this bill addresses a problem that is already exceedingly rare. In those infrequent cases where issues do arise, they are typically not related to the quality of the fuel itself, but rather due to factors like water infiltration or maintenance issues with underground storage tanks.
Ohio is fortunate to benefit from access to consistently high-quality fuel, thanks in part to being home to four major refineries. Additionally, much of the fuel sold in the state is branded gasoline that undergoes extensive testing and quality control. Many of our members of both the retail merchants and the OECA (Ohio Energy and Convenience Association) are so confident in their product that they offer guarantees on the fuel they sell.
While we appreciate the concerns raised by the sponsors, we believe this bill represents a solution in search of a problem and would add unnecessary costs and layers of bureaucracy. We are always open to discussions about how to improve fuel standards and consumer protection, but we believe proposed changes should be grounded in a demonstrated need.”
Summit County’s Fiscal Office told the I-Team over the last four-and-a-half years – from January 2021 through June 2025 – it’s gotten three complaints from drivers about bad gasoline at stations in that community.
“During the years in question, none of the stations failed when we did our inspections,” Summit County Fiscal Office Chief of Staff Michael Migden told the I-Team in an email about that January 2021 to June 2025 stretch.
“It doesn’t happen frequently,” Montgomery County Auditor Karl Keith told the I-Team. “But whenever something like this does happen, it can cause some major damage to someone’s car.”
Keith has been a longtime proponent of allowing statewide fuel quality testing in Ohio.
“I have been pushing legislation like that even before I was county auditor,” Keith said. “When I was the chief deputy auditor and the weights and measures guys reported to me, so this is back in the 90s when I was working in the auditor’s office. Ever since I’ve been the county auditor, this is something that we’ve been pushing legislatively. My colleagues in the County Auditors Association of Ohio have been very supportive. Other legislators have been supportive.”
Keith says his inspectors in Montgomery County already know how to do fuel quality inspections; they just aren’t allowed to do so under current state law.
“We can go ahead and do those types of things while we’re doing the normal inspections,” Keith said. “And so it would come at not great expense or not great time cost either.”
But until the law changes, Desmarais and other drivers will have to keep wondering how much bad gasoline could cost them.
“A $50 tank of gas turns into $1,500 out of your pocket and then possibly five grand,” Desmarais said.
Blackshear Jr.’s bill was introduced in the Ohio Senate in February. It’s currently in Senate committee.
The I-Team will track the bill’s progress at the Statehouse in Columbus and let you know what happens to it.
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