Petrol in diesel

[Jamie_C]

Hello i've made the mistake of putting 5litres of petrol in my diesel tank, so i got towed home without starting it. how do i drain the tank. also is it safe to tow a tiptronic at 50mph in neutrel....

[Andy J]

I did this with a pug 307 a few years ago, I put £10 in before realising, I just topped the tank up with Deisel the car was new with about 5000 miles on it I never had a problem so I would say 5ltrs wouldn't be a problem.

[Marco34]

Hello i've made the mistake of putting 5litres of petrol in my diesel tank, so i got towed home without starting it. how do i drain the tank. also is it safe to tow a tiptronic at 50mph in neutrel....

If you've got a 130 PD I would have it drained completely. 10 litres is far too much. As you havn't started a complete drain will suffice, no need to change fuel filter. I thought I was putting in BPs ulitmate diesel put put in £35 of ultimate petrol years ago. I got a tow to a place which was very customed to perfroming such jobs. Sadly it cost me £75. They go in the boot and physically get into the fuel tank to drain the lot. Mine survived that. It's getting it to such a place???? Possibly you could siphon it yourself from the tank.. Not sure how easy it is...

[Andy J]

If you've got a 130 PD I would have it drained completely. 10 litres is far too much. As you started a complete drain will suffice, no need to change fuel filter. I thought I was putting in ulitmate diesel put put in £35 of ultimate petrol years ago. I got a tow to a place which was verycustomed to perfroming such jobs. Sadly it cost me £75. They go in the boot and physically get into the fuel tank to drain the lot. Mine survived that. It's getting it to such a place???? Possibly you could siphon it yourself from the tank.. Not sure how easy it is...


He's only put 5ltrs in not 10 so I wouldn't think it's a problem, certainly wasn't with my pug 307 2.0 HDI, even the Peugeot main dealers said no problem. Surely 5 ltrs diluted into 75 ltrs will hardly be noticable.

[zollaf]

you can safely put 25% petrol into a diesel with no problems. this is the official vw guidelines, or was upto 2004. just top up with diesel as often as you can to dilute it.

[Marco34]

you can safely put 25% petrol into a diesel with no problems. this is the official vw guidelines, or was upto 2004. just top up with diesel as often as you can to dilute it.

This advice is poor....

Only 5 litres :biglaugh:

No way would I run the risk. 5 litres in modern PD engines is a no no. Do a search and see. Official VW guidelines, show me?

Referencing to Peugeot is no help. Audi do not recommend any petrol mix with deisel. A pint maybe. The injectors on moder VW/Audis run at 25000psi. 5 litres is alot in these engines. Yiou 'may' get away with it, you may not.

jamie - the choice is yours but it could easily conk out and cause damage well beyond a proper drain... see some info below.

Can I dilute the petrol with diesel?

Diluting contaminated fuel may be possible on older cars that lack the fine, high-pressure diesel injection systems of modern diesels. However, this is a high-risk move which could result in the destruction of your engine. It may be possible to dilute a proportion of petrol to diesel under 10% in such cars, though there´s no guarantee this will work. Your car may run roughly for a while and you may risk long-term damage that is not immediately apparent. We don´t recommend you try this but if you do risk it you need to be completely sure about your car´s fuel tank and engine system - try this on a common-rail diesel and you´ll simply wreck your engine.

[danclyon]

This advice is poor....

Only 5 litres :biglaugh:

No way would I run the risk. 5 litres in modern PD engines is a no no. Do a search and see. Official VW guidelines, show me?

Referencing to Peugeot is no help. Audi do not recommend any petrol mix with deisel. A pint maybe. The injectors on moder VW/Audis run at 25000psi. 5 litres is alot in these engines. Yiou 'may' get away with it, you may not.

jamie - the choice is yours but it could easily conk out and cause damage well beyond a proper drain... see some info below.

Can I dilute the petrol with diesel?

Diluting contaminated fuel may be possible on older cars that lack the fine, high-pressure diesel injection systems of modern diesels. However, this is a high-risk move which could result in the destruction of your engine. It may be possible to dilute a proportion of petrol to diesel under 10% in such cars, though there´s no guarantee this will work. Your car may run roughly for a while and you may risk long-term damage that is not immediately apparent. We don´t recommend you try this but if you do risk it you need to be completely sure about your car´s fuel tank and engine system - try this on a common-rail diesel and you´ll simply wreck your engine.

Having just done this on a friends Golf - It's quite an easy siphon job with simple pipe from a pet shop (aquarium filter pipe seems to work well).
Takes a while and you have to be a bit "liberal" with the shaking it about a bit to get ti down into the tank, but it's not tricky to do - and it's all the AA do when your stepfather accidentally put 60l of VPower petrol in your mothers Diesel Volvo - just they had a small insulated leccy pump to speed the process up, but they did it on the Shell forecourt (her V70 has the old Audi 5 cyl diesel in it).

You get "most of" it out - meaning that the concentration of what is left is something like a cup full in 70 litres when you refill - making the petrol of negligible concentration.

The AA chap reported no ill effects on his wifes A3 when she had done it and he used the same approach and she'd brimmed the diesel tank with Unleaded....

Taking the tank off is a lot of work and won't achieve much more than you can do with a simple syphon.

Hth,
Cheers,
Dan.

[Marco34]

I'd follow Dans advice.. Sounds good to me. It isn't worth the risk.

:beerchug:

[adamss24]

Fill it up to the brim and it will run even better than with normal diesel There is common practice to put a few litres of petrol to a tank of diesel in europe durring cold winters to stop the fuel from gelling ! It might take a bit longer to start but it wont do no dammage.

[Andy J]

This advice is poor....


Referencing to Peugeot is no help. Audi do not recommend any petrol mix with deisel. A pint maybe. The injectors on moder VW/Audis run at 25000psi. 5 litres is alot in these engines.



Peugeot run at 1800 bar which is 26000psi

[Marco34]

Fill it up to the brim and it will run even better than with normal diesel There is common practice to put a few litres of petrol to a tank of diesel in europe durring cold winters to stop the fuel from gelling ! It might take a bit longer to start but it wont do no dammage.

So why don't Audi suggest this in there manual! They don't even suggest a diesel additive? I thought fuel companies put additives in the diesel to prevent this. If it takes longer to start it evidantly isn't happy.

Petrol will vaporise too quickly in the cylinder and detonate giving poor performance. It could seize the injector pump, which relies on the oily fuel for lubrication.

[Marco34]

Peugeot run at 1800 bar which is 26000psi

It may run but damage could be done ready for them to fail at later date. I was advised at the time to never run it with petrol of say more than a pint... this was by a VW/Audi specialist and the RAC.

I'm sure the dealer would be happy to replacing injectors....

[danclyon]

So why don't Audi suggest this in there manual! They don't even suggest a diesel additive? I thought fuel companies put additives in the diesel to prevent this. If it takes longer to start it evidantly isn't happy.

Petrol will vaporise too quickly in the cylinder and detonate giving poor performance. It could seize the injector pump, which relies on the oily fuel for lubrication.

Have you seen a TD engine run on Petrol - it's bloody funny - you look like you've joined the Red Arrows with white/grey smoke billowing out the back :)

On older engines it used to damage the seals on the injection pump, and I believe that this is still a problem on modern engines. My mum's car had it's injection pump replaced the other day apparently just because one seal was weeping. We had an old Fiat Tempra at work (TD) and one guy filled that with petrol and drove it (thus I know the red arrows effect well!) - once it was drained and primed again with diesel all was well again......or so it seemed.

Damage visible a few weeks later was: Injectors, Injection pump, broken engine mount (the engine was jumping about like it was about to part company with the car on the diesel/petrol mix), manifold and front section of exhaust were shot (excess heat in them had deformed them) - cost about a grand to put it right again and that wasn't main-dealer prices :)

It's just not worth "diluting it" - I support your comments of no more than a pint - less if possible!!

Cheers,
Dan.

[Marco34]

Few, think you came in just in time with story, before he was advised to dilute!!

:beerchug:

[onzarob]

When my father-in-law filled his passat with diesel and drove it home. I drained the tank completely, blew all the petrol out of the fuel lines, removed the filter and drain that. then filled the fuel filter with diesel and the tank.

I wasn't going to run the risk for a few hours of flushing everything out, engine and fuel pumps are more expensive ;) that was over 18 months ago and it still happily going along.

to drain the tank, lift the back seat remove the top off the fuel pump and use a syphon pipe to drain.

[danclyon]

When my father-in-law filled his passat with diesel and drove it home. I drained the tank completely, blew all the petrol out of the fuel lines, removed the filter and drain that. then filled the fuel filter with diesel and the tank.

I wasn't going to run the risk for a few hours of flushing everything out, engine and fuel pumps are more expensive ;) that was over 18 months ago and it still happily going along.

to drain the tank, lift the back seat remove the top off the fuel pump and use a syphon pipe to drain.

Is it the same to get at the tank on the Avant then? If so it's under the carpeting under the seat....I'll know for next time and then will hopefluly be able to see the bottom of the tank......I'm not saying it's a certainty I'm going to do it - but you know what sods law is like ;-)

D.

[m8gic]

Hi i would not recommend topping it up with die driving it. I was once told its ok dilute diesel in a petrol but not the other way round. I once put 10 litres of unleaded in my brothers Skoda Octavia 204 1.9 TDI. The RAC towed the car home and I didnot even put the ignition on as this will prime the fuel and suck it through. The garage wanted £130 to remove it and that space they had was the following day. I disconnected one of the pipes from the fuel tank. The fuel will not flow out as there is a valve that stops the fuel. I attached a sython with a pump and in 10 mins the fuel was out. Pipe back on and car is was perfect.

[zollaf]

This advice is poor....

Only 5 litres :biglaugh:

No way would I run the risk. 5 litres in modern PD engines is a no no. Do a search and see. Official VW guidelines, show me?

im only going by what i was told by vw technical department when i used to work for vw assistance. we were told that if a customer had put upto 25% petrol in a diesel, fill the tank up with diesel and send them on their way. as this went down on the paperwork, and the cars were within warranty,vw obviously didnt have a problem with this.

[danclyon]

im only going by what i was told by vw technical department when i used to work for vw assistance. we were told that if a customer had put upto 25% petrol in a diesel, fill the tank up with diesel and send them on their way. as this went down on the paperwork, and the cars were within warranty,vw obviously didnt have a problem with this.

Either that or the effects are delayed and that falls into a different financial year/reporting period for warranty claims - or more likely the car would be out of warranty by then and so it's just money in the bank ;-)

Cheers,
Dan.

[zollaf]

this applied to any car, even straight off the forcourt, with no miles on the clock.

[danclyon]

this applied to any car, even straight off the forcourt, with no miles on the clock.

*boggle*

:beerchug:

Dan.

[Jamie_C]

Well now i have added 60litres of diesel, to dilute hope for the best thanks for advice. shall i keep it topped up ?

[zollaf]

best to top up as often as you can. use 1/4 tank then refill. do this maybe 4 times and go back to normal.

[borabeast]

Jamie C:

Hows it working out for you? Any issues? You still stuck at the side of the M5?

Good luck