OT - petrol in diesel car

[Nobody]

Hi,

Advice needed. Up to 4 litres of unleaded has been put into the tank of a diesel car, which was nearly empty. What's the best way of dealing with this?

TIA

[Clive George]

What sort of diesel car? Old ones - just fill the tank with diesel, it'll be fine, May involve a few trips with a can though :-). Modern ones - draining it properly may be sensible, if you haven't tried starting it (have you?)

cheers, clive

[Nobody]

K reg Astra 1.7 turbo diesel injection. Turned over around 4 times to start (it didn't - flat battery).

[Ron Lowe]

Probably best to fill it full with diesel and just go with it.

4 litres is not much. I don't know the tank capacity, but less than 10% unleaded in diesel is not usually a problem.

We've had similar issues here with a diesel Audi A4 and diesel LandRover discovery. In both cases, similar quantites as you describe, but probably diluted more. The Audi had a 60l tank, the disco is 80l.

[Clive George]

That's old enough. Just fill it up again.

cheers, clive

[tim.....]

But as his attempts to start it will have filled the pipes up with petrol he will have to draw through all the neat petrol before he gets a mix which will fire. It is best to do this manually, there should be a way of doing this (which is not there for this eventuality, but it should work for it)

tim

[Ron Lowe]

It probably won't have sucked raw unleaed. He won't have been starting from totally dry. Even 'nearly empty' would have provided some mix, it's not clear how much further diesel he pumped before trying to start the thing.

It's not the ability of the mix to fire which is the issue with unlead-in-diesel, it's the lack of necessary lubriaction for the diesel injection pump. Assuming it has survived so far, best thing to do is fill it full with diesel and hope for the best.

[Frank Erskine]

I once did this. The company car was diesel and my own was petrol. One Monday morning, with an almost empty diesel tank I virtually filled it with unleaded before realising my mistake. The fuel card for the company car was for derv only (as well as oil etc), so I had to pay the cashier with my (well, the company's) credit card, then drive into an adjacent car park and call the breakdown company, who towed it to somewhere to drain the fuel system and put a bit of derv in... :-) ISTR the car at the time was a Primera. I blame these dual pumps - with separate pumps you had to think a bit more when deciding to fill your tank.

[Andrew Gabriel]

I followed behind a van going up the M3 a few weeks ago, which was a company who come out to empty your tank and clean your fuel system when you've filled it with the wrong fuel. Unfortunately I don't recall what they were called.

[tim.....]

Whilst not being an expert on this..... if petrol could be made to combust by compression alone someone would have invented an engine that did so.

Just a thought.

tim

[AlanC]

The AA have their own 'fleet' of vans that are especially equiped for this type of job. Apparently it happens a lot.

A friend of mine did it a couple of months ago with is old'ish range rover. It stalled at the paypoint on the M6 toll and when the AA arrived the spotted it (or should I say smelt it) straight away.

The AA guy told him that they did one a few weeks back where some woman (not trying to be sex'ist) filled up with unleaded. She was still at the garage when they were called to drain it, they put enough in to get the car going then told her to go and fill up. She went straight back to the unleaded pump and was just about to fill it with unleaded again before they stopped her!

Alan

[Roger Mills]

Must be a fairly common mistake then, if a whole lot of people are able to make a living out of rectifying it!

[Roger Mills]

It does - but not in a very controlled manner! Ever heard of 'knock'?

High octane petrol specifically resists this - but only at very modest compression ratios compared with diesel engines.

[Graham.]

I did this with a Cavalier. About 5 litres of diesel in a near empty tank. I didn't attempt to move the car, I called the AA He told me that it would be OK if I just filled the tank as the contamination was less than 10% He showed me the official figures on his laptop, so I felt quite confident about it.

[dennis]

Before winter diesel was about it was normal to add petrol to diesel to stop waxing in the winter. IIRC my astra handbook states up to 25% unleaded may be used and that one of the current engines not some old thing.

[Mark]

Like my Rolls Royce K60 engine ?

-

[Appelation Controlee]

---------------8><

When you say dual pumps, do you mean both derv and petrol are delivered through the same nozzle? I haven't seen one of those.

[Frank Erskine]

No - separate nozzles, but on the same machine.

[Broadback]

Never understood why they don't make different shaped nozzles and stop the problem.

[The Natural Philosopher]

send it to the garage if you have (tried to) start it. The whole fuel system needs to be emptied of petrol. And primed and filled with good Diesel.

If you haven't, drain the tank and pray.