Oil companies in Pakistan have proclaimed Honda Atlas is at fault. Honda Atlas held responsible the local gasoline companies for damage to engines in one of its vehicle models seems to know the engines are incompatible with Pakistani fuel standards and are in need of calibration.
A complaint was put forward by Honda Atlas, in the previous week, to the country’s oil and gas regulator in which it stated that the high levels of manganese appeared to be quite damaging towards the engines in its vehicles. Honda has for the time being cut the production of the model in Pakistan owing to the said problem.
On Wednesday Head of the Oil Companies Advisory Council (OCAC) Ilyas Fazil said in a statement:
“The Honda Civic 1.5 I VTEC Turbo model is currently incompatible with market fuels available in Pakistan. As we all know that our country is presently at the beginning of its clean fuels journey, and sulfur levels in fuel remain higher than those in required for Euro 4 vehicles such as the Honda Civic 1.5. The fact that sales of this vehicle are to be suspended may suggest that the vehicle manufacturer is aware of this and intend to calibrate the vehicle for the Pakistan market properly.”
Honda refused to comment on the statement issued by OCAC.It was said to the Reuters by a senior Honda executive Nadeem Azam: “We have filed a complaint with the Oil and Gas Regulatory Authority (OGRA) who are now looking into the matter. So let that investigation result come.”
It was said to the Reuters by senior industry officials that Pakistan’s trail in going towards the clean fuel standards that are in practice in the developed countries could take up to 20 years.
Complaint that was put forward by Honda’s stated that Pakistani suppliers have used the additive to raise the Research Octane Number (RON). This is actually used to grade petroleum and lower quality fuel up to the RON 92 grade requisite by regulatory standards.
OCAC in the rejoinder, states that Honda is “attempting to blame catalyst failures and potential warranty claims on fuel quality, rather than on the inappropriate calibration of the vehicle.”
Pakistan’s petroleum sales have raised in the past two years, boosting about 10% between 2015 and 2017 and sustained growth is predictable as Chinese-backed development projects encourage the transportation and automotive sectors.
