Government is adopting a wait-and-see policy on fears dodgy diesel fuel is attacking taxi engines.

On Monday, taxi drivers told The Royal Gazette they were being forced off the road because engines were leaking fuel.

Transport Department consultant Larry Jacobs said: "It's in the hands of the companies. Right now we are waiting for communication. Upon that we will act accordingly.

"When we find out we will get together with the Ministry of Environment to pursue it if it needs to be pursued further."

Esso and Shell are doing tests and gathering information to find out the cause of the problem.

Drivers have reported fuel links after seals on injection pumps became damaged.

Esso General Manager Ed Edelson and Shell general manager John Vickerman said their companies would be prepared to compensate drivers if their fuel was at fault, but Mr. Edelson added he could give no estimation of how long investigations would take.

He said: "Esso stands behind its products and if it's found a product is at fault it will take care of people affected.

"In general, that comes down to paying for repairs and for lost income that can be determined, that also would be incorporated.

"The good news is the problem doesn't appear to be growing. If yesterday there were 30 cabs with the problem we still appear to be in that range."

He said the problem was limited to older Japanese vehicles.

Mr. Vickerman said data collected yesterday showed it was vehicles with Japanese engines at least six years old that were affected.

Shell has taken samples of the diesel and is flying it to a company laboratory near Liverpool in England for testing, and results should be available some time next week.

Mr. Vickerman said the industry was moving to greener fuel which had less sulphur content, but this change was "unlikely" to be the cause of the current problems.

"If there is a problem with the fuel, Shell will meet any documented claims from any of our consumers," said Mr. Vickerman.

"We are treating this very seriously and taking time to get to grips with the problem. We must get the data, and once we know what the problem is, we can advise on corrective action as quickly as we can."

Yesterday, taxi driver Dennis Bean said Government should be doing its own tests and not leaving it to the companies.

And he denied the problem was limited to one class of vehicle.

He said: "It's not just the L400s (six-seaters). It's also the new Volkswagens."

He said the four days his taxi had been off the road had cost him at least $1,000 in lost earnings.

He is now trying to patch up his vehicle to get it back on the road.

But he said he feared if the fuel was at fault there was no guarantee that the problem wouldn't happen again.

He said: "It's not easy to fix the situation. Government needs to get to the bottom of this."

Mr. Jacobs said that once initial assessments had been done by the company, Government would be more proactive.

He said there had been no reports of trucks or buses being affected by problems with diesel fuel.