Petrol in Diesel Car

[murray26775]

Ive just put £20 petrol in an A4 Diesel which was more or less empty.

As I drove off from the petrol station, I noticed the speed drop, a local mechanic has took the car away for flushing out.

Anybody know the extent of damage this can cause and what needs repaired.

Regards Shaz

i put petrol into my escort van once, 10.00 worth, realising my mistake i payed for the petrol and then put in 10.00 diesel on top. the van never skipped a beat.

[MalcQV]

On a modern car you can't put diesel in a petrol, the nozzle just won't fit.

[SLEACH]

Hi I fail to agree with you on this issue.From my point of view, you have got it the wrong way around.The components on a diesel engine are partly lubricated with additives in diesel,which petrol does not have.A petrol engine, filled with diesel will eventuelly stop,without any major distruction, perhaps the Cat, a diesel engine filled with petrol on the other hand i cant imagine what is going to happen with the injection pump,and injectors.

That's just what I thought. I know hgv's usually put a gallon of petrol in a huge tank in winter to stop their fuel freezing but what he said was it was practically empty when he put the petrol in. No lubrication as you said sounds like trouble to me.

[onzarob]

A Small amount of petrol wont hurt. a short distance with alot of petrol won't hurt either. But if you catch it right/wrong the petrol is highly flammable and you can get detonation and its lights out

Just drain the tank, flush the lines and replace empty the fuel filter. fill the tank with diesel then start,let the engine run until it runs smooth and all should be well.

[murray26775]

On a modern car you can't put diesel in a petrol, the nozzle just won't fit.

he said he put petrol in a diesel, nossel will fit just fine, easy mistake to make.

[MalcQV]

he said he put petrol in a diesel, nossel will fit just fine, easy mistake to make.

Aye he did, the topic went off a little and diesel in petrol came up that's all

[MarcoV]

he said he put petrol in a diesel, nossel will fit just fine, easy mistake to make.

I dont think its a particulary easy mistake.
I own a petrol car and use a diesel for work. I have never got them mixed up and i doubt i ever will to be honest!

[nemeth782]

I don't know, I've a mechanic friend who worked on HGVs in the 80s, and according to him they had a direct injection diesel HGV that was filled with a full tank of petrol.

According to him, the petrol being thinner meant that once the diesel in the fuel line had been used up, the governor wasn't able to control the flow of the much thinner petrol.

The vehicle proceeded to do an impression of a runaway freight train, and being as diesel engines of the time had no electronics to speak of, even switching off the ignition did nothing to stop it running. In the end the driver had to leave it in gear and slam on the breaks to stall it - destroying the disks and pads in the process.

Apparently kicking it out of gear and stopping would just have meant it revved to self destruct.

Still, I'm not a mechanic myself so I may be believing a lie

[barryG]

I did this the other day in the wifes Golf... stopped for fuel and she was chatting away and I put just under £3 of petrol in it.... quickly shoved another £37 of diesel in the tank. Did she laughjust a bit.
I suppose the refinement of a 1.9 Tdi from 1995 with zillions of miles made me forget