A South MS woman filled her gas tank and now her 2023 luxury car won’t run. What happened?

Lauren Joffrion filled the gas tank of her 2023 BMW before work Dec. 9.

When she got off that evening, the corporate executive chef said, her car started to shake and the acceleration seemed off.

She had a hard time starting the car the next morning, and it was still shaking. When she went to leave work that evening, the BMW wouldn’t start. The Gulfport resident called her father 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 she had filled up at Clark Oil’s service station on Beach Boulevard in downtown Biloxi, a busy location across from the Beau Rivage Resort & Casino.

The mechanics had already checked out another car recently fueled at the same Clark’s station. The car had been filled with diesel fuel 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 she’s so far gotten no assistance from Clark’s to cover the cost. Joffrion is meanwhile paying out of pocket for a rental.

Diesel fuel will damage gas engines

Galleria operations manager Roger Hudson confirmed that Joffrion’s car needs repair because it was filled and operated with diesel fuel.

“It makes a car not run at all or misfire severely,” he said, noting damage depends on how much diesel was put into the tank and how long the car ran with 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 tank for premium gas. Her public post has been shared more than 40 times.

One commenter wrote, “Hate to hear this. Happened to me once in another station in Gulfport. Cost hundreds to fix my car.”

Clark Oil, based in Waynesboro, has not responded to a telephone call from the Sun Herald. The company operates convenience stores with gas pumps in Mississippi and Alabama.

Because she was getting no help from Clark’s, Joffrion said she called attorney Matthew Schloegel of the Healy & Jordan law firm in Gulfport. Schloegel said his firm has previously handled similar cases.

“These things happen,” he said. “The drivers get confused. They’re human beings. If they put (fuel) in the wrong tank, they have insurance for that.”

It’s unclear how long diesel fuel was apparently flowing from the premium pump, he said, but he has a second client who filled up at the same Clark’s station, the other BMW owner who took her car to Galleria.

He said Clark Oil is in the process of getting him information on the company’s insurance carrier. He’s unsure, however, if the matter can be resolved without a lawsuit.

Like Joffrion, he thought the public needed to know about the fuel mix-up.

“That’s a very high-traffic gas station,” he said. “We believe there are more people” who got the wrong gas.

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