what happens if you put diesel in a petrol engine and vice versa?

Answer 1

Oh my god! I have just got my car back after doing this myself! I put £20 worth of unleaded petrol in a Deisel car. 200 yards down the road the car stopped and the engine stopped. The car was taken back to a main car dealership where they looked at the car and the damage. New deisel cars use the deisel and the lubricants in the fuel to lubricate fuel injectors and the fuel pump, by putting the wrong fuel in it I cracked 2 injectors, damaged the fuel pump completely and wrecked a piston! It would have cost me around £4000 to get fixed however fortunately my insurance company does cover this as accidental damage (some insurance companies don't now as its one of the most common problems they have to deal with). It only cost me my excess and so I was very very lucky. Everyone I met in the process said that this was the most common thing they have to deal with, the breakdown truck driver, garage technician and the insurance assesor. What I don't understand is that figures I researched says over 120,000 people do this in a year(!!) in the UK alone. Why then doesn't the government and car manufacturers get together and sort out some kind of fuel pump change so you can't do this and none of the pumps fit the wrong car (I know this has been done for deisel into petrol cars, the petrol pump nozzsle doesn't fit however it still doesn't help people who do it the other way around!) Anyway hope that helps, the main thing I learn't is don;t do it! And if you do and realise don't drive off as if the fuel hasn't got around the engine system it will only cost around £100 to have the fual drained from the tank.

Answer 2

Diesel In Petrol Car

Answer 3

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RE:
what happens if you put diesel in a petrol engine and vice versa?

Answer 4

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Diesel in petrol engine - If it was a mixture of the 2, and there was enough petrol in the mixture, the engine would run, albeit not great, and put out masses of white smoke from the exhaust like James Bond. This is the unburnt diesel being vapourised in the hot exhaust pipe. Pure diesel in a petrol engine just won't run. Petrol in diesel engine - % of diesel in the mixture needs to be higher that in the previous scenario, and if it runs, it will run like a 3 legged cow in a sand pit! Diesel engines hate petrol and are less likely to be tolerant of cross contamination than a petrol engine. Why?- Petrol engines work by the vapourised fuel and air mixture being ignited by the spark from a spark plug to cause the explosion. Diesel engines do not use spark plugs, they compress the fuel / air mixture to a much higher pressure, which in itself creates the necessary heat to cause the explosion. That's why you can't run the different fuels in the wrong engines!

Answer 5

depends how much you put in.

A little diesel in petrol would result in a very smokey exhaust, too much diesel and the engine would not run. You would need a complete drain of the system, and then refill.

A little petrol in diesel again would do no real harm, too much and the engine again would not go and need a complete drain and refill.

If you realise you have done this in a filling station and have put any more than about 5% mix in then do not start the engine

Answer 6

Diesel in a gas/petrol engine: Poor performance if it runs at all, and will depend on how much diesel was added to the existing gas.

Gas/petrol in diesel: Depends on how much was added to existing diesel. Disaster for the fuel injection pump and/or injector system immediately, pistons and cylinder walls shortly thereafter.

Diesels are high compression engines. The compression causes heat that causes the fuel to burn when it is introduced into the cylinder in an atomized mist. Gas has a lower flash point, it will burn too fast and cause extreme pre-ignition resulting in piston failure if it runs long enough. Diesel fuel also is used to lubricate the injection pump and injectors; gas/petrol lacks lubricating properties and will cause seizing within those components.

Diesel has a higher flash point than gas, and gas engines a lower compression ratio than diesel. Diesel does not efficiently ignite in a spark ignition situation. The lower compression is insufficient to assist the spark ignition to cause the cylinder to fire. The effect will be sort of like adding water to a fire, it just will not work in that engine.

Gas/petrol engines are lower compression. They too use a fuel injection system but at lower pressures than diesel. Older gas/petrol units used carburetor systems to deliver the fuel- very inefficient but more tolerant that fuel injection. The lower compression may not allow diesel to burn at all, but if it does it will not perform well.

Advice: add gas/petrol to gas/petrol engines, and diesel to diesels only, do not mix the 2.

***Contrary to another reply, diesel contains a greater content of BTU of energy per gallon than gas/petrol. That is what gives diesels their low end grunt power and greater efficiency over gas/petrol units.

Answer 7

If you put diesel in a petrol car drain off all the fuel if you are lucky and catch it before it gets to the fuel pump you could be in luck put a couple of gallons of petrol in and run on tickover till it runs reasonably smoothly the only adverse effect is that the car will run on after it is switched off until all trace of the diesel as gone you need to stall the car to stop it but it only lasts a few days

Answer 8

I once put petrol in a diesel van that was owned by the company I worked for.

Its acceleration was appalling. I let it run for a while like that before I got to another petrol station and filled up with diesel. It ran ok for me after that, but a few days later the van wouldn't work at all, and it cost a lot of my company's money to fix it.

I don't work for that company any more.

Answer 9

You be out of pocket with money costs alot for a new engine well a whole new car prob and paying for the fuel you dont need , by putting a clearly sign label stating what it is on the pump. if shouldnt happen if you can read and not coloured blind, when you find out if this happens whatever you do do not turn the key as this will cause more damage to the car. The costs of fuel these days it will be very expensive and a tow to the garage

Answer 10

It WON'T wreck the engine. It will simply not run once the "odd" fuel gets to the engine. It will require you to flush the entire fuel system and replace the fuel filters. Normal labor is around $200 US to fix this kind of oops. The Germans did make some tri-fuel engines in WWII that could run on Diesel, Gas, Naptha (I think) but they never ran 100% efficiently on any fuel as the engine was built to compromise the right combustion conditions.