BMW E90 320D Fuel Drain

Phemo · 6 Feb 2018 at 10:22

Hi guys,

My 320D partly died last week (reverse gear no longer works, not really worth sorting out) but annoyingly I'd brimmed the tank the previous day. While it's not the end of the world, it is a bit annoying that I'll end up ditching the car with a near-full tank of diesel. Is there an easy way to drain this out?

The only ways I'm aware of are:

1). Lift the back seats out and lift the carpet to get access to the two fuel pump/sender units. Take them out and then I will have access to the diesel there. Knowing my luck I'll trash something though.

2). Jack the car up, disconnect the fuel filter and sit there pushing the power button (but not starting the engine) for ages until the fuel is emptied out into a container. I've done this on another car but not sure if it'd work on this car.

Are there any other solutions anyone can think of? Or is it just not worth bothering with for £70 of fuel?

brendy · 6 Feb 2018 at 10:26

Syphon it out, either manually or with a drill attachment.

Gaygle · 6 Feb 2018 at 11:41

Can you not fix the car? If not, draining the diesel may see you contaminating it at some point. The best way to do it is as you send, lift up rear seats to get access to the tank and syphon out. To do this properly, would mean you would need a decent length tubing, an electric pump and a large, secure 60litre container outside of car to pump the diesel into. Then when you'll want to put it into another car, you'll need to pump it out of the large container, into the new car.

If you had an electric pump, a load of tubing, a large 60litre container and can be bothered enough to do it - it's doable. If you are going to need to start spending money to get a pump/tubing/container then it's completely not worth it. Remember if you do do this, everything will need to be clean before you use it to avoid contamination.

Phemo · 6 Feb 2018 at 12:30

Very valid points. I do have a 10 litre fuel container so could pump 10 litres out at a time straight into that and then pop it into one of my other cars. However the only electric pump I have is one of the ones for sucking engine oil up through the dipstick hole so obviously I wouldn't use that. I agree it's not worth spending any serious money on anything to get it done and knowing my luck, I'd knacker the pump/senders when trying to get access to the tank anyway.

Scania · 6 Feb 2018 at 14:07

I’m guessing it’s an e46?

Swapping the box for an auto or manual isn’t a huge job to any half competent garage and used ‘boxes of either variant are plentiful.

Depends on the state of the rest of the car I’d guess?

As for the fuel, if Your scrapping it then just pull the line off the car and let it drain although I’d personally not bother the last thing you want is any potentially contaminated fuel in its replacement! - I did this years back with an old car and wished I hadn’t, somehow got the fuel contaminated and had to spend on new filters to get it running right again!

Scooby_WR1 · 7 Feb 2018 at 11:29

No need to mess about so much, all you need to do is connect some hose to a convenient place, remove the fuel pump relay and send 12v into the correct pin, it will then pump the crap out for you.