Silicon in petrol may have caused breakdowns

SCIENTISTS last night said they had found silicon in fuel suspected of causing thousands of British cars to break down during the past week.

Trading standards officers said they had carried out spot checks on fuel from forecourts in Cambridgeshire, Kent, Essex and Buckinghamshire in an attempt to identify any contaminant.

Thousands of motorists had reported a similar fault on their cars in recent days which experts thought had been caused by contaminated fuel.