‘We were all filling up with water': Man out of thousands after using pump with bad gas

Yahoo

13-05-2025

CHOCTAW, Okla. (KFOR) — An Oklahoma man was left stranded on the side of the road for nearly two hours just a couple of minutes after he stopped in Choctaw to get gas.
Jonathon Kirkwood was headed to pick up his daughter from school on April 30 when he stopped at the eExpress Thunder Plaza Travel stop near South Choctaw Road.
'Immediately about a mile, two miles up the road, I broke down on the side of the road with about ten other people all stranded as well,' said Kirkwood.
Kirkwood said other people who were also stranded told him they thought they had just gotten bad gas from the Thunder Travel Plaza.
'I noticed that the state fuel inspector was there checking the gas and from there he told me that the gas station was at fault and he saw that they had five inches of water in their fuel tank,' said Kirkwood.
Kirkwood was forced to take several days off of work and had to pay thousands of dollars to repair his truck.
'I finally got my vehicle fixed for the price of $2,265, not to mention the tow truck,' said Kirkwood.
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He was finally able to get a hold of eExpress customer service and they told him they would only pay for a portion of the repairs.
'They would cover $1,000 of the total of everything that this cost. That's not even half of the cost of what it was to repair the vehicle,' said Kirkwood.
Kirkwood declined he offer and told the gas station he needed full reimbursement.
'They said that if I did not accept that, they would put me in contact with their insurance company, but I still have not heard from the insurance company,' said Kirkwood.
He is now left paying thousands of dollars for damage he did not cause.
'I would like them to reimburse me for everything that is coming out of pocket. There's others out there that are having the same problem,' said Kirkwood.
News 4 reached out to eExpress corporate but did not hear back.
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