Petrol In A Diesel Engine

[sean l]

My wife put

[Mirez]

If its petrol thats in there then under no circumstances try to start the engine, get it recovered and drained. If you are lucky then no serious damage will have already occured but you need to have it properly drained.

 

It should say on the receipt what pump and grade was used and at the very least the cost per gallon which should allow you to work out whats been used - call the garage if not as they can confirm using the number.

Edited October 9, 2010 by Mirez

[taxidave]

Hi Sean,

 

It's a real bummer when this happens as i've done it myself. I would suggest getting the tank emptied. You probably could get away with filling the car with diesel & keeping it topped up. I have done this myself but the car will run rough for at least a week & it is a real sod to get started as well.

 

Hope you get it sorted

[gregers]

do a search on here for this problem,a few years back a member done this and posted pictures up on a repair etc.hope its of help to you.

[sean l]

Panic over!

my neighbour seen me struggling with the car and came over with a DIY pump attached to a piece of wood, with 2 hoses. I connected it up to the car battery and it sucks the petrol out of my tank into my 5-litre fuel container. I filled it 5 times and put the recovered petrol into my Renault Clio.

I have just been to the petrol station and got 3 litres of diesel, put it into the Galaxy and after trying to start it for 5 minutes and lot of smoke. Hey Presto, it started.

I hope there isn't any permanent damage. Just going to take it out for a bit of a spin.

The wife owes me big time!!!

Thanks for the advice everyone.

[gregers]

iirc thats very similar to the thread i was on about pretty sure thats all he done aswell,and reported back there seemed to be no lasting problems.fingers crossed your in the same boat.

[seatkid]

The chance of any damage to a PD or Tdi engine is minimal. The engine just stops when the petrol gets to the injector (as petrol doesnt ignite in a compression engine). There is no high pressure fuel pump to damage (as there is in a common rail engine) and the low pressure electric lift pump is probably the same as they fit in petrol engined models.

 

You'll also be smoking the Clios engine with running with contaminated fuel - not a good idea......

 

For both cars dilute the contamination as much as possible by topping up the cars with the correct fuels asap.

 

Good idea to change the fuel filter on the diesel after this kind of episode.