Petrol in Diesel car

[shogunswb]

Hi

I recently had my car serviced by a garage & on the way home it started to behave a bit strangely & was difficult to start when it was warm.

To cut a long story short they had filled it up with about 1/3 petrol not diesel & it was run like this for about 3 hours & about 100 miles until I realised the problem.

My question is has any other members had any damage to either the fuel system, engine or exhaust with similar circumstances even if it wasn't apparent for 6 - 12 months?

Thanks

[shogunswb]

Sorry forgot to mention it's an IS220d with about 100k on it.

[Texas]

Unusual for a garage to put fuel in a car ( apart from Lexus on recall work) when servicing it!.....

so I guess it was 1/3 of a tank of petrol that was put into an empty tank ( otherwise they won't of bothered putting any in) so now I'm amazed it ran for that long on almost neat petrol!!!

Misfueling as it's called is I understand more damaging when petrol is used in a derv as opposed to diesel in a petrol. This might be due to the petrol damaging rubber and other seals that are normally in contact diesel and not petrol in the fuel system and the fact that diesel pumps are normally lubricated with the actual diesel on its way to the engine!

I don't get the 6-12 months part? Has the not been used since? 

paul m.

[The-Acre]

I once did the same with a diesel and there wasn't any damage, although I didn't drive very far before I realised my mistake.  Interesting reading Paul's comments, I always assumed putting petrol in a diesel was less harmful than vice versa.

[shogunswb]

It had about 2/3 of a tank of diesel or slightly less & they put in about a 1/3 of a tank so it was a mix but on smelling the mix it was more petrol than diesel if you know what I mean.

My main concern is the injector pump as I know that it's lubricated by the diesel & by adding the petrol it's function to lubricate is severely affected & can cause massive wear as well as causing problems with the seals & injectors, like you mentioned.

It also burns quite a bit hotter so can cause head problems as well as exhaust but to be honest that's probably helped clean out the dpf.

I heard of quite a few situations before where once the system has been flushed through all appears well & then a few months (or longer) down the line, the injector pump fails costing many, many thousands of pounds to fix, or the head gasket blows as a result of the contamination, hence the 6-12 months.

[Verbout]

This was done regularly at my last place of work, particularly by a certain part of the workforce, even though it was marked DIESEL above the filler cap.

I was told it wasn’t as bad putting petrol in a diesel.

The vehicles were always taken away on a low loader and returned a few hours later. 

[Linas.P]

Same here ... I though it is much worse to put diesel in petrol car, then vice versa (obviously if you can somehow manage to do that :D). There was test on youtube ( I believe by 5th gear) and they didn't find any damage as long as the system is not left for long time with wrong fuel. After refuelling with correct liquid it should be fine... unless you want to get new car, because damage to fuel system on IS220d would mean it is write-off (new fuel system would definitely be more then the car worth) at current prices.

[shogunswb]

I saw the 5th gear vid but was a little stupid to put it mildly.

This is from the AA website:

More importantly, putting petrol into a diesel tank causes more damage.

That’s because diesel acts as a lubricant, helping the fuel pump to do its job. Petrol, on the other hand, causes the reverse to happen: it actually increases friction between parts in the diesel engine. And that’s never good news for an engine. So the more petrol that gets pumped through your diesel fuel system, the more damage it will do.

Common rail (or HDi) diesel engines are particularly susceptible to damage from misfuelling. If the damage is extensive, you could be looking at new fuel pumps, injectors, pipes, filters, fuel tank – or even a whole new replacement engine. Not good.

[Linas.P]

I long term ... yes I agree. If you leave that petrol there for a week or drive excessive mileage before realising. As for running trough few litres of petrol and then emptying it - certainly not.

If you would put even a dash of diesel in say IS250 (or other petrol injection car for that matter).. that is bye bye car.. Fuel injectors will be stuck straight away, the lines, the pump and the tank would need to be changed due to contamination... to effectively prevent injectors from getting stuck from left-over diesel. Total write-off. Maybe nowadays misspelling specialists have some kind of cleaners to clean diesel out of petrol system, but it would be major job.

For non injected petrol, probably not as much of the problem.