LAHORE: In Pakistan, adulteration has quietly shifted from an illicit trade into an accepted norm. While public outrage rightfully centres on compromised food items and agricultural inputs, a parallel crisis unfurls on our roads and industrial corridors.
The systemic adulteration of petroleum, diesel and motor oils. Just as contaminated food acts as a slow poison to the human body, substandard lubricants and diluted fuels inflict a quiet, costly decay on vehicle engines.
When a motorist buys engine oil or fills up at a pump, they pay 100 per cent of the market price expecting full performance. Instead, they often receive a diluted product operating at 70-80 per cent efficiency. This value gap translates into a crushing financial burden for ordinary citizens already battling record inflation. For daily wage earners, ride-hailing drivers, and commercial fleet operators, unexpected mechanical breakdowns mean lost livelihoods and skyrocketing repair bills that swallow monthly savings.
Under proper maintenance with genuine lubricants, a well-engineered vehicle can run smoothly past 200,000 kilometres before needing a major overhaul. Substandard or recycled base oils destroy that longevity -- often causing engines to blow thick smoke, lose compression, and require major rebuilds in as little as 75,000 kilometres. Blending kerosene, light diesel or cheap recycled solvents into petrol damages sensitive fuel injectors, causes severe engine knocking, and drastically drops fuel mileage.
Modern auto engines and lubricants are finely engineered ecosystems. Today’s fuel and lubricant specifications are built for precise thermal limits, friction management, and strict emissions control. Tampering with these formulas triggers a rapid chain reaction of mechanical failures. Adulterated oils break down rapidly under high operational temperatures, losing viscosity and exposing critical metal components to friction, metal-on-metal grinding, and catastrophic overheating.
Impure fuel alters combustion characteristics, leading to misfires, stubborn carbon buildup, clogged filters, and heightened fire hazards. Beyond internal damage, toxic exhaust from incomplete combustion suffocates urban air quality and rapidly destroys expensive catalytic converters designed to filter dangerous emissions.
The crisis is no longer confined to small-scale roadside vendors operating out of rusty drums. It has evolved into an organised, grey-market industry featuring sophisticated bottling plants that counterfeit trusted international brand packaging with alarming precision. Combined with systemic governance failures, from reports of stolen furnace oil diverted to public power plants to unmonitored blending units operating with impunity, public assets are drained while everyday consumers absorb the structural loss.
On a national level, this malpractice forces Pakistan to import foreign spare parts and replacement engines prematurely, bleeding precious foreign exchange reserves. Accepting fuel and lubricant adulteration as an inevitable reality is a disastrous mistake. Protecting our automotive infrastructure, public health and national economy requires strict regulatory oversight from petroleum authorities, unannounced fuel testing at supply depots, and uncompromising penalties for counterfeit blenders. Short of that, Pakistani consumers will continue paying full price for products that quietly sabotage their hardest-earned investments.
