The Natural Philosopher wrote:

Matthew Barnard wrote:

I have read the entire recent thread on putting petrol into a diesel
engine. However that scenario was about 10% or less added.

Today my wife filled an empty tank in a diesel car completely with
unleaded petrol in error. The tank must be at least 90% petrol! Less
than one mile down the road the engine started juddering. She realised
her mistake and stopped and called the AA. They advised not driving any
further to avoid damage. The car was towed to a garage. They have said
that they will provide a complete report by friday - but that it will
involve a great deal of work - and the bill is liable to be thousands!

The car is a one year old mercedes cdi estate. Does anyone think they
could be right - or are they likely to be greatly exaggerating?


It requires a fairly compreghensive replacement of all teh fuel filters,
possibly teh fuel pump(s) and a good flush through of all the pipes and
injectors *to be safe*. She may have damaged something as well.

I just paid 75 quid an hour for labour on my last service, so thats not
that many hours work - ten hours say - plus a few parts - to get to a
thousand.

Needless to say, draining teh tank, and ripping the injector out, and
cranking teh engine untill what comes out smles of diesel, is the simple
way out, and probably would not result in any problems...However, if
they DID get a problem, guess who you would be suing?

Naturally even that is beyond a mercedes grease monkey as well, so they
will simply replce all the most expensive easy to remove bits, flush the
pipework through, and let your insurance pay.

The balance here is between:

A) Simply syphoning the petrol out (where to put it safely/legally
um...)
Fill with Diesel, bleed the fuel line (possible automatic anyway) and
drive on.

B) Some remote chance that some serious damage has already occurred.

Then there are the warranty implications.

If the vehicle was 3 years I'd go for the gamble and diy it, but it
ain't.

--
Ed Sirett - Property maintainer and registered gas fitter.
The FAQ for uk.diy is at www.diyfaq.org.uk
Gas fitting FAQ http://www.makewrite.demon.co.uk/GasFitting.html
Sealed CH FAQ http://www.makewrite.demon.co.uk/SealedCH.html