Help! Put Unleaded in my Diesel

[snapdragon]

Yeah, I'd put half a bottle of two stroke oil in the tank (~300ml) if it was mine.
The petrol will reduce the cetane making it hard to start (retarded)

[kid-jensen]

Put the 2-stroike oil in.....hopefully no permanent damage done.

I'll be taking it easy till the proportion of petrol is insignificant though...

May even get the MPG that I'm supposed to..

[ross 24]

Sorry to ressurect this and hoping someone can come up a quick answer, but my son has just put 11 ktrs petrol in has A6 Allroad 2.5 when he was on reserve. Hasn't started the car. Can he get away with filling the tank with diesel and a fuel treatment or should he get it drained first. I advised him to get it drained first, am I correct?

Jon

[kid-jensen]

From my experience, draining is the least aggravation, and guaranteed to not do any damage.

I got my Hand-puimp from ebay for about a tenner...worked a treat.

[ross 24]

Thanks very much mr. Kid. I have been reading (mainly on the net) about how it's OK up to 10% just to fill up and dilute but as his came to 16% I kinda thought it would be a drain and refill. He'll have to learn won't he. I guess he won't be doing that again in a hurry.

Cheers
Jon

[Kyojitsu]

I've unfortunately done this (yep, felt a complete idiot but I ride a motorbike daily and it takes unleaded, it was early blah blah) but you just need to bite the bullet and get the tank drained. Allroads have saddlebag tanks so you can't just drain from the filler - the rear seat squab needs removing to get to both sides and be sure all petrol is removed. I'm told the main problem is that unleaded is astringent and if left for more than a short time having been drawn through the fuel pump etc, destroys the seals in the fuel system (whereas diesel is a lubricant). I managed to drive a short distance from the station to a local mechanic who could do the job for about £120 and now it's running fine. You also notice you've suddenly got more capacity as the draining removes water and gunk from the bottom of the tanks.

[pete99]

I've unfortunately done this (yep, felt a complete idiot but I ride a motorbike daily and it takes unleaded, it was early blah blah) but you just need to bite the bullet and get the tank drained. Allroads have saddlebag tanks so you can't just drain from the filler - the rear seat squab needs removing to get to both sides and be sure all petrol is removed. I'm told the main problem is that unleaded is astringent and if left for more than a short time having been drawn through the fuel pump etc, destroys the seals in the fuel system (whereas diesel is a lubricant). I managed to drive a short distance from the station to a local mechanic who could do the job for about £120 and now it's running fine. You also notice you've suddenly got more capacity as the draining removes water and gunk from the bottom of the tanks.

Maybe it's a good idea to have a sticker stuck on car above your filler flap -- ?.
Like those ones that say 'Diesel FUEL' . But - new sticker saying-- 'HAVE I GOT MY HELMET ON ?.

[Brycie]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought unless you have commonrail, you should be ok to put some unleaded in the tank as it gives pd diesel engines a clean. Obviously not the 1/4 tank the op put in, but I didn't think 11 litres would be a problem if you fill the rest up with diesel - on the contrary, I thought it would do it good. Now I wouldn't actually do this on purpose, but am I correct in thinking this or not? Just out of interest.

[pete99]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought unless you have commonrail, you should be ok to put some unleaded in the tank as it gives pd diesel engines a clean. Obviously not the 1/4 tank the op put in, but I didn't think 11 litres would be a problem if you fill the rest up with diesel - on the contrary, I thought it would do it good. Now I wouldn't actually do this on purpose, but am I correct in thinking this or not? Just out of interest.

Can you just run through that again 'Brucie' ?.

[Brycie]

Yeah, I've heard of a lot of people putting a bit of unleaded in their diesel engines occasionally as it has a cleaning effect on the older diesel engines before they switched to common rail.