Petrol in a diesel car? safe to drive?

Question

hi my mother put 4 pounds worth of petrol in her diesel car, its a P reg golf.

i told her just to fill it right up with diesel and it will be ok. she hasnt put any in it yet will this be ok?

Answer 1

Yes it will be fine, in fact you will probable notice that it starts much better than normal.

Answer 2

No............drain the tank and replace the fuel filter and then refill, it will smoke for awhile but it will be okay but dont drive it with the gas in the car...

Answer 3

Its fine considering you put abiout 3,5 litres in, but really you need to dilute this as much as possible t reduce the risk of damage to the engine, dont just top it up with diesel, actually get as much diesel in there as possiblt, preferably before you drive it again!

Answer 4

Make her do what you said. Or take it a garage and get charged more than the car is worth.

Answer 5

for that amount of of petrol it will cause no issues. all you need to do is fill up with diesel to dilute. the petrol will just act as a cleaner agent. i've done this myself in my 2006 peugeot 206 diesel with no issue.

Answer 6

Cant remember, which way around it is with petrol and diesel, in the wrong car, one will cause the engine to blow up, the other will cause lot of smoke. Just get the tank pumped out.

Answer 7

NO.  Diesel motors ignite the fuel by compressing it with extreme force until it reaches its flash point.  Petrol fuel has a much lower flash point then diesel fuel.  This means that the petrol will ignite prematurely causing popping, pinging, overheating and can damage internal parts of the motor such as piston rings (not likely the rods because on most diesel motors they are strong, forged rods), spark plugs, etc.  siphon the fuel out of the tank, get rid of it and fill it back up with the proper fuel.

Answer 8

It will be fine.  I did this I put £10 worth in a nearly empty tank.  The garage told me to fill the tank with diesel, run it down to 1/4 full then fill it up again.  I did this and it was fine.

Answer 9

it should be fine.  I know someone who's made that mistake before too!  I can't remember if the tank had to be cleaned out though.

Answer 10

just fill it up with diesel it will be ok. £4 is not a lot in petrol.

Answer 11

That's about 3/4 gallon. If you fill to the brim with derv it will run, but there will be some extra wear in the injection system, and possible long term damage. You are probably looking at  more than £500 damage compared wit around £100 or so to get a drain and re-fill

Answer 12

Please ignore the advice to 'just carry on'. This could be an extremely expensive mistake. Do not waste money on putting in more diesel at the moment either, it may just have to be drained out and thrown away.

Sorry but you must NOT switch on the igntion or start the engine. Even diluted petrol could cause very expensive damage to the vehicle.

Switching on the iginition, even without starting the engine, will cause the electric high pressure fuel pump in the tank to force the mixed fuel through the pipes, filters etc of the system.

This is because some diesel cars use a type of material in the seals and gaskets of their fuel system which will be completely destroyed by any contact with petrol. In these cars they have no tollerance of any petrol/diesel mix.



I know that this is the case for Toyotas and so is probably very common across other makes, because they often buy-in components from common parts makers.

You must immediately contact the main dealer for advice. Don't be put off by "of course they want me to pay them for the work" or "oh dear this will mean throwing away £££ worth of fuel" arguments. If you damage the car's fuel system or engine it will cost you £thousands.  

Take the professional VW trained mechanic's advice.

Be prepared to tow the car in to the garage and have very heavy brakes and steering; because you can have the igintion switch in "Accessories" (first click) position to unlock the steering wheel but you must not turn it any further (so NO igintion controlled electrics can be used and the power steering and brakes won't work.

Most VW main dealers workshops are open until 12 o'clock on Saturday so you had best get on the phone quick.

Answer 13

This is interesting, you may get away with this by diluting it down with deisel as deisel engines work very differnetly to a petrol due to the combustion differences of the liquid. The cheapest thing to do would be to dump the ful in the tank yourself, you know like scally robbers do with a bit of hose from B&Q and a bucket, this means you'll get most of the petrol out, you should then fill it up with as much Diesel as you can, a large can of Diesel will get you to the petrol station and then fill it right up to the top to get maximum dilution of the petrol. As Diesel is combusted in a pressurised heated state this far exceeds petrol so you may just get away with diluting it down to start with.

If it was the other way around with diesel in a petrol engine it would never work and should not be started so that all the diesel remains in the tank. Petrol is simply sparked and it ignites  and as such the simpler petrol engine will no burn diesel.

At the end of the day petrol engines can use "Bio Diesel" from farm shops which usually still contain "debris" from bad production and this still works. You can supposidly use lots of differnt fuels in diesels and the other plus is it's a old diesel and like the saying goes they don't make them like they used to and old dirty diesel engines had relatively massive tolances and as such are big dirty beasts kicking out black smoke so they can handle it.

Good luck any how.

Answer 14

As long as she filled it right up with diesel she should be OK. (and I would keep topping it up every time I haved used a quarter tank...........just to be sure lol )  I got to the £10 before I realised.  AA got me the information that if I had put less in then it would have been OK to fill up to top with diesall and should be OK.  Was advised not even to start the car.  Got it sorted next morning at local garage, AA couldnt drain it!

Answer 15

Ignore these people who say it's fine, it's NOT fine. It may run with the fuel mixed but it will cause a lot of damage to the valves and cost a fortune to put right. You must get the tank cleaned out before you run it.

Answer 16

Unfortunately, you have got yourself into a slight mess here.

You will need to fill empty the tank completely of Petrol so there is none left in there, it will need to be pumped out into a metal drum, or similar drainage solution, you can not dump it for public safety reasons.

You can not use the car, it MUST be towed to a Garage.

Answer 17

You're right, just fill it up with diesel and keep it topped for while and it will be o.k. Had over 20 cars through the workshop in the last 12 months with the same problem. One had been driven for 10 miles before it stopped. Got it in the workshop and drained the tank and filled it with diesel. New filter and bled the system to get rid of the last remains of petrol. Got it started, ran rough for a little while with a lot of smoke. Took it for a roadtest and it's been running fine since.

No need to drain your tank, just top it up with diesel and it will be fine. Done the same to other cars like yours and not had any problems afterwards.

Answer 18

£4 worth, thats only about a tablespoon these days!