A Senior Moment

I did that once. Doesn't it make you furious? As I waited in the garage whilst the mechanic drained the tank (thankfully I realised what I'd done before I started the engine) he was telling me a local chap had filled up his diesel BMW with petrol twice in one week...

My latest vehicle, a diesel Range Rover, has a rather clever device inside the filler tube that closes over if you try to stick the smaller diameter petrol nozzle in. You then have to retrieve a special tool from under the boot floor to reset it.

Senior moments, dontcha luv 'em. I hear Stannah are working on a faster stair lift that gets you upstairs before you forget why you went.

Joe

Tony,

I was mortified - my wife was 'understanding'

The two BMW garages had different views. I did not start the car either but I did switch on the ignition to release the steering lock so we could move the car (by pushing) and to enable a window to be shut.

One garage thought that a simple tank drain down and flush would be sufficient. The other insisted that as the ignition had been switched on the fuel pump would have been primed and contaminated which in their view required a complete fuel pump replacement.

In the absence of a nifty device like yours my wife and I will adopt a 'standard operating procedure' in future which means that we will both attend to fuel refills in the expectation that at least one of us will have their wits about them.

Mike

Unleaded in diesel does no harm, in fact it cleans everything out. My mate filled his BT van with unleaded when we were on the way back from Oxford, it drove a few meters before stumbling to a stop. AA straight A towed us to a local garage they pumped out the mix gave us a gallon on of diesel and sent us on on our way. There should be no damage done , unless BMW make special low tolerance engines.
Diesel in petrol engines can attack the rubber seals.

PS
Please get them to explain why the fuel pump would be damaged, the first lot of diesel through would surly flush and dilute any remaining petrol. You can run on a small mix.
Go to the garage that is willing to drain and flush

I think there is a lot of money taken(stolen) by garages shafting people over this.

My understanding is that newer diesel cars can be damaged by petrol, but how much they don't say.

My neighbour put a few litres of petrol into his diesel Discovery, topped up with diesel and carried on driving with no obvious problem, in fact he said it made it go like stink!

quote:

Originally posted by BigH47:
Unleaded in diesel does no harm, in fact it cleans everything out.

That's my understanding too. Explains why the fillers are designed so you can't cram a diesel nozzle into a petrol flap and not the other way round.

Joe

quote:

My understanding is that newer diesel cars can be damaged by petrol, but how much they don't say.

Possible promulgated by the very people trying to get your business.

Mind you a Land Rover product is probably design to run on any thing from camel piss upwards, not as finicky as the supposedly more "sophisticated" Beemers etc.

quote:

Mind you a Land Rover product is probably design to run on any thing from camel piss upwards

That`s why i have one

The particular BMW dealer who insisted the fuel pump would be damaged said that the pump relies on the diesel passing through it for lubrication. Their service dept rep spoke in hushed tones as if he were describing a delicate mechanism and the crown jewels. The fact that the engine had not been started did not seem to change their opinion.

The second dealer thought the first was just trying it on. You take the garages on trust but the car was eventually moved from the first to the second. The work of draining, flushing the tank and the fuel lines, and replacing the fuel filter is now at last underway.

The insurance company were very slow and I only got them involved initially because the first dealer quoted £1500+ which included the fuel pump. The second dealer's quote was hardly worth settling through the insurance so we have now impacted our NCB for a comparatively low claim - sod's law in action.

An absolute nightmare. Having a rant on these pages has been therapeutic!

Mike

Brian that sounds like a stretch regarding the fuel pump if it had been damaged by few seconds of petrol passing through. I wonder what the flushing agent is the garages use.

I hope you are back on the road soon.

My Golf has just taken into it's brain not to start. I was hoping to take it round for a replacement battery, but for the first time ever it won't "go" on a jump start.

The damage that is the big disaster - especially for modern common rail diesels - is in the fuel INJECTION pump.
Switching on the ignition but not starting the engine should not do much, if any, harm. This starts the fuel transfer pump & will just move fuel from the tank around the primary fuel system.

If petrol gets in the injection pump, then that can be an expensive fix.
(a) petrol cannot be pressurised as in a diesel fuel injection system, in modern engines this can be in excess of 1,800 or 2,000 atmospheres (26,000 or 29,000psi) It will cavitate (spontaneously develop gas bubbles under pressure) which will crack & chip off edges of the steel parts in the very fine tolerance pump. (outboard engine owners will be familiar with prop cavitation damage)
(b) petrol does not carry a lubricant, so the internals of the pump are washed of lubricant & can seize.

I have cleaned out a number of these mistakes over the years & had complete success when the engine had not been started.
All that needs to be done is the tank drained completely & refilled with new diesel, I have added a diesel lubricant in some cases. The primary fuel circuit is purged with the new diesel. The injector feed pipes are cracked open at the nozzles to prevent pressure building behind the nozzle & the engine cranked for a 10 or 15 second burst, purging the possibility of petrol being in these lines. The injector nozzle retightened & the engine started and run on idle for 5 minutes.

I guess the problem with the expensive BMW garage is they have a fail safe policy procedure and/or could be over egging the job.

Mike,

Thanks for that insight. I not sure whether to be relieved or worried now that the car is with the lower cost dealer. It's all down to trust but I think I will ring them to check their view of the possibility of damage to the fuel injection pump.

Having bought my first diesel after 30 years of driving petrol cars, it's only a matter of time..
However, I found this on the net: www.misfuellingprevention.co.uk/dragonsden.asp
Anyone had any experience of this?

Incidentally, what Mike describes is often referred to these days as a "CRAFT moment"!

quote:

"CRAFT moment"

???

Well, I knew that someone would ask!

Can't Remember A F(lipp)ing Thing.

G

Well I thought I was going to regret asking.

Good to see its a polite acronym.

Mike

Jeremy,

Thanks for the link. I have sent off an enquiry re suitability for Beamers. The website features testimonials so on paper looks good.

Are you planning to get one??

You are not alone Mike,Wayne Rooney did the same with his brand new Range Rover Oops wrong fuel! ,filled up drove out of the garage and ground to a halt 60yards down the road!

There you go it happens to the young and fit as well but if I had his money I wouldn't worry.

quote:

Originally posted by Blueknowz:
You are not alone Mike,Wayne Rooney did the same with his brand new Range Rover Oops wrong fuel! ,filled up drove out of the garage and ground to a halt 60yards down the road!

Well, I guess Range Rover Sports don't have the same protection device as mine...

Of course, they're not "proper" Rangies.

I put about 20 litres of unleaded in my diesel Bora about four years and 90,000 miles ago. I simply topped up with about 30 litres of diesel, added some diesel treatment, and went on my way. The only sign of what I'd done was hot-starts took a few more turns of the engine. Economy and power seemed the same as normal, and as soon as I did a complete refill from empty of diesel the hot-start problem disappeared. Two friends, one in his twenties by the way, have done the same and had no long lasting engine or fuel pump problems.

Perhaps the VW PD engine and pumps are more accepting of the wrong fluids. Mine even sucked in some water two weeks ago and shuddered to a halt. I removed the glow plugs, turned the engine over, plugs back in, soaked airfilter binned, started the engine, and once the steam from the exhaust cleared off I went. Initially I was convinced I'd bent a rod!

Tony

Tony, it depends a lot on the engines fuel system design & to a great extent its design vintage. Older pump & nozzle designs such as those based on the original 1930's Bosch patents for example are very forgiving, up to a point.
It used to be common practice - & still is in places that have poor fuel standards - to add a petrol to diesel to prevent diesel from waxing in sub zero conditions. The old engines would run OK, but these engines are a few generations closer to the original diesel engine which were designed to run on less than specific fuels
Modern engines have made great advances with emission reductions & are far more complicated as a result. To achieve these emission they require pump & assc equipment tolerances that were practically impossible only a few years ago.
Its these tolerances that made the modern engine so unforgiving of any fuel other than pure diesel. Even now the industry is generally very nervous over the use of bio-diesel. But that is a whole other rock strewn goat trail best avoided

It would be interesting to see another TV test of putting the wrong fuel in a diesel engine like 5th Gear (I think) did a few years ago.

I had a lot of people trying to scare the life out of me when I had put petrol in, even car mechanics. I think I did the right thing then, but yeah, I'd probably act differently now.

I've got into the habit of putting the fuel nozzle in, checking which car I'm refuelling (our Bora and MkIV Golf are the same bloody colour!!) and then rechecking the pump I'm using.

Tony

Mike, any news ????