help. have put petrol in diesal engine. is my car dead?

Question

my tank was 1/4 full then put in £10 of petrol. Ran car for 20 miles before realising something was very wrong. is this curable please

Answer 1

Fill up with diesel and you'll be OK.

Answer 2

No not necessarily

If the car stopped and will not start then you will have to drain all the contaminated fuel out, drain the fuel filter and replace it add at least £20 of fresh fuel and bleed it through.

Now try to start the car and this will be a bit difficult but persist and then let it run gently to flush any remaining traces of petrol through the system.

If the car drives OK then fill with diesel and all is likely to be fine

Main problems occur due to the distinct lack of lubricating qualities in petrol. This can cause the diesel pump to have problems. However generally if you can get the car to run OK on the correct diesel after draining then it is more likely to be just fine

Answer 3

Not good. Diesel acts as a lubricant, so petrol can seriously damage engine innards (because petrol is not a lubricant). The fact you ran it for 20 miles makes this a potentially costly mistake.

You might just get away with it, as there was already 1/4 tank of diesel in. If your tank is large (60 litres, say), £10 worth of petrol may not dilute it much. Fill up with diesel immediately, and hope for the best.

Answer 4

it depends..my hubby put a tenners worth of petrol in his empty (running on fumes) 2.0 diesel vectra ran it about 15/20 miles or so realized what he had done, then had to use my punto to run around getting a new fuel filter and plugs, had to use a very large container for diesel. he ended up having to drain the tank, fill it up with diesel, and really give it some 'welly' it ran absolutely fine after that-in fact it sounds and performs a lot better than it did before the petrol incident! although i would not recommend tuning your diesel engine with petrol! so depending on the circumstances, i suppose, it should be fine.

Answer 5

Fill it to the brim with diesel every day for about a week. It will dilute the petrol more every time. The only side affect with a weak petrol/diesel mixture seems to be is poor hot starting due to petrol vapour lock in the common rail at the cylinder head. This will get better as the petrol is used up.
Then fit the biggest sticker you can get above the fuel filler with DIESEL on it.

Answer 6

be thankfull it petrol in a diesel and not the other way round
try and drain the tank then change the fuel filter fill up with DIESEL and run it will cough & splutter till all the petrol is out the
system but will get back to normal buy the time you come to fill it up again....

Answer 7

Talk to a mechanic. I know of people who put a drop of petrol in a tank of diesel to stop i freezing in winter. Don't know if it does the engine any good though.

Answer 8

It is curable.

Siphon out the petrol if you can and fill up with diesel.
It will be good as new.

You might need to have a mechanic clean it out but I doubt it.

Answer 9

Oh I've done that!! No its not dead but it's poorly!! You'll need to change your fuel filter, and the glow plugs once you've drained the system down. Then fill it with diesel and drive it flat out for a mile or two to flood the engine and wash out the petrol. May be worth getting it done at a garage.

Answer 10

drain out fuel tank blow fuel lines through with compressed air and refil tank with diesel you may find the petrol has destroyed the seals in the injector pump reconditinning this costs about £350 00

Answer 11

keep the tank full with diesel as petrol is lighter than diesel and after time the petrol will evaporate and clean the system but you must keep it filled with diesel...