Truckers sue oil companies over `hot fuel’

Truck driver owner-operators file consumer fraud lawsuit against oil companies, claiming ‘hot fuel’ provides less energy.

Claiming consumers are being defrauded of more than $2 billion a year, a group of truck driver owner-operators have filed a lawsuit against most of the major oil companies and several retailers who sell ”hot fuel” at gas stations and truck stops across the country.

The industry standard for fuel is supposed to be 60 degrees, but at the pump fuel is often sold at temperatures higher than that, which gives less energy per gallon, according to the lawsuit. The oil industry adjusts fuel volumes to the 60-degree standard through most of the distribution channels except at the retail pump.

Take Lakeland-based truck driver owner-operator Bill Younger, one of 11 plaintiffs who filed the lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Northern California.

”The trucking industry and owner-operators in particular have been taking a beating in many, many areas and this hot fuel thing is one of them,” said Younger by phone on Thursday, as his wife, who works alongside him, drove their truck through the hills of Wyoming.

Younger, who has been working on the road for more than 50 years, said the couple’s annual fuel costs were between $20,000 and $30,000. He joined the lawsuit, he said, because he knows they would save money if temperature regulators were placed on gas pumps, as is standard in Canada.

Miami Herald