Wrong fuel, dumbass

merlin

merlin

merlin

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Oops, a colleague has just asked me what happens when you put petrol into a diesel car. I just laughed and said "bad things, why?".

I think it's his wife - she's hired a car and filled it up with petrol. Only problem is that it's a Diesel car. :D

She's driven about 10 miles (apparently) with it well down on power/spluttering and generally complaining untill it eventually stopped. Every sort of engine/cooling light is lit on the dash. She didn't think to stop, she just carried on driving untill it just gave up.

Oh deary me.

She's killed it hasn't she?
 
It's a Hire car and you get Awards for killing them.

Seriously though it depends on what car it is. Unfortunetly these new cars are not as hardy as the old dervs and yes she has probably nigh on killed it.
What car was it ?
 
As it's a hire car, it's likely to be relatively new. Unfortunately, by driving it for some time, she will have done enough damage to requiring the replacement of the entire engine and the fuelling system!
 
Depends what car it is, but yes, any modern day diesel will be well and truely dead. It also depends on the amount she put it. A few quid, she might be lucky. 20bar of petrol dumped into your engine... Ouch! Well and truely dead.
 
I s'pose more important is how much deposit did she have to leave.
Prob 250 which is pretty cheap for an 06 cars destruction :D
 
I hate to say, but I once put diesel in a petrol car. Fortunately it was a complete banger, and once it was drained and some petrol was put in it worked perfecly fine. :p

At my local petrol station, I knew that one of their pumps always gave a more petrol than the others, so I always went to that one. This wasn't a big name petrol station, so the pumps were't fancy ones like you get at Shell or BP. They were just single outlets without colour coding.

Little did I know that they'd changed my favourite petrol pump over to dispensing diesel. I always used that pump, so didn't read the pump or anything. :o

A few miles up the road the car just started spluttering and pouring smoke out the exhaust. Then died.
 
But Bug One surely putting disel in a petrol car is MUCH better than the other way round. Petrol cars are just likely to refuse to work once all the actual petrol has run through the system, whereas disel engines use higher compressions thus creating something far more serious?
 
oh dear thats going to be a new engine if the coolant went then it was heating up, proberbly due to lack of lubrication, and when it finaly gave up the ghost it may well have mullered the internals :(

i'd be looking very very closely at the contract she signed, i'd imagine the insurance excess would only apply to crashes... so i'm not sure what this would be covered under, if it even is!
 
Guessing it will be a newish car, if she has driven 10 miles in it and had a whole dashboard array of lights then she has definatley done some major damage.

Quite probably terminal.

Time to get that contract out and start reading I think!
 
The main issue with petrol in a modern diesel is the injection system relies on the fuel for its lubrication - and diesel being a heavy oil is does a pretty good job. Petrol being a solvent will wash away any trace of lubrication and eventually cause the cams and rollers in the pump to break up and fill the fuel system with metal filings.

Most common rail systems cost upwards of £2k for the bits, plus the labour to renew the pump, injectors, common rail, pipework, fuel filter, removal of the fuel tank to wash it out and the cleaning of the fuel supply and return lines.

VAG's are a bit different as they have unit injectors, but chances are they'll need replacing too.

More than 10% diesel and basically its screwed without very expensive repairs.

I hope he's insured - should be if he works with you though ;)
 
LeperousDust said:
But Bug One surely putting disel in a petrol car is MUCH better than the other way round. Petrol cars are just likely to refuse to work once all the actual petrol has run through the system, whereas disel engines use higher compressions thus creating something far more serious?
Click to expand...
Yes, I know its a different situation. Just thought I'd add my shameful story. :p
 
It must depend on the situation..

I remember been driven upto JCB for a big technology Demo we where doing for them, the guy driving was just constantly yapping, telling us his whole life story.. you know.. he was so busy yapping when he filled up with fuel, he put unleaded in a diesel.. the first we knew was when it ground to a halt in roadworks on the M6..

I had to get a work mate to come and pick me up in a pool car, and we left numpty behind to stay with the car as it was towed to a garage to be flushed..

The car survived, without any major damage..
 
My mate stuck 20L of petrol in a diesel van once, he realised and although it ran crap, it already had enough diesel in there (and he kept topping it up) to kinda dilute it and it lived.
 
opps?

Was it an empty tank when she filled up. If it was only a small amount she could maybe dilute it by brimming it with diesel and pulling a few hand brake turns to shake it up :eek: Sounds too late to do anything, I hope they dont have her credit card details or the limit is really low on it.

A diesel van would probably be low tech stuff where as this is probably direct injection fancy stuff and has preignited in the fuel rail. Arent they 3000psi ? :o

edit:
In older diesel engines, a distributor-type injection pump, regulated by the engine, supplies bursts of fuel to injectors which are simply nozzles through which the diesel is sprayed into the engine's combustion chamber.

In common rail systems, the distributor injection pump is eliminated. Instead an extremely high pressure pump stores a reservoir of fuel at high pressure - up to 1,800 bar (180 MPa, 26,000 psi) - in a "common rail", basically a tube which in turn branches off to computer-controlled injector valves, each of which contains a precision-machined nozzle and a plunger driven by a solenoid, or even by piezo-electric actuators, which are found on experimental diesel race car engines.

Most European automakers have common rail diesels in their model lineups, even for commercial vehicles. Some Japanese manufacturers, such as Toyota, Nissan and recently Honda, have also developed common rail diesel engines.

Different car makers refer to their common rail engines by different names, e.g. DaimlerChrysler's CDI, Ford Motor Company's TDCi (most of these engines are manufactured by PSA), Fiat Group's (Fiat, Alfa Romeo and Lancia) JTD, Renault's dCi, GM/Opel's CDTi (most of these engines are manufactured by Fiat, other by Isuzu), Hyundai's CRDi, Mitsubishi's DI-D, PSA Peugeot Citroën's HDi (Engines for commercial diesel vehicles are made by Ford Motor Company), Toyota's D-4D, and so on.
Click to expand...
 
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LeperousDust said:
But Bug One surely putting disel in a petrol car is MUCH better than the other way round. Petrol cars are just likely to refuse to work once all the actual petrol has run through the system, whereas disel engines use higher compressions thus creating something far more serious?
Click to expand...

When I had my 620SDI I put in (from empty) 8 quid of petrol before I realised the error. I just filled the rest of the tank with diesel and it was fine.

Then, every 30 odd miles I'd put more diesel in. It was fine apart from a bit of smoke.

Also, my dad told me that in the olden days, people used to put a litre or two of petrol in the diesel tank when it was very icy conditions to stop it getting too thick....
 
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