scoobfan

My darling wife put around £2.00 worth of diesel into by Scoob
yesterday and i was wondering what sort of damage this may do.

Mistakes happen and she was quite upset when she told me, i would
like to put both her's and my mind at rest.

It had a full rebuild by API about 2K ago !!!!

Cheers
Rob

The Chief

I take it it has been run with Diesel in?

and i also take it you have drained it out asap?

ALi-B

iTrader: (1)

£2 isn't much, BUT if you do drive it, you must brim it with super unleaded, dump in can of octane booster, run it until empty. And DO NOT run it on full boost or thrash it, then brim again with SUL and booster still taking it relatively easy on the next tankful.

The reason for doing so is diesel reduces the octane level and makes pinking/detontation very likely on a turbo engine (especially if JDM or re-mapped/modded).


However, I strongly reccomend you call Dave at Api and ask him, because it may well effect any warrantee with your engine. And he may say draining is the only option if youwant to keep the warrantee.

APIDavid

iTrader: (4)

Rob, That's bad news I am afraid do you want us to come and get it?? We will need to flush it out properly and get it running to assess any damage. it may not be too bad, if she realised the mistake and didn't go far in it.

If it got filled with Optimax on top of the diesel then perhaps a dose of Octane booster will keep it safe.

Give me a call if I can help.

Kind regards and tough luck mate. David APi.

scoobfan

Fortunately she realised what she had done and mentioned it to
a guy from the AA who was on the forecourt he gave her advice
and she filled it up

She only did 30mph on the way home and it seemed OK.

I was more concerned about long term damage, but it should be OK
according to the local Subaru garage she phoned.

Rob

APIDavid

iTrader: (4)

Get some booster in it though Rob.

scoobfan

Full can of Pro Boost at the ready David !!!

Rob

andy97

iTrader: (1)

Wife did this years ago, she half filled the tank before she had realised that it wasnt her usual car she was driving. Outcome was fuel tank drained, flush fuel lines, tank and new fuel filter. Everything ok

scoobfan

Yeah , were not talking half a tank here, only £2.40 worth so minimal.

I will fit a new filter though.

Rob

dazdavies

iTrader: (22)

Scare mongering if ever i saw it.

It was only two quids worth. Take the earlier advice. Change the filter fill tank with optimax no need for booster drive steady and run it almost dry and fill with optimax again job done. Had it been a diesel car with petrol put in by mistake thats a whole new and very much more expensive ball game.
In short, fill up, drive steady, empty tank fill again Job done.

Hope the stops your fears of massive damage and huge bills

scooby-tc

iTrader: (2)

isnt that grounds for divorce

greatwhite

it will only take 1/2 ltr of diesel to put a tank full of petrol off spec, drain it out and stick it in your lawn mower.

APIDavid

iTrader: (4)

Rob Knows well enough that I don't do scare mongering. The post was written before I understood the amount. Remember he is just finished running in a new engine and he and APi want to make sure that it doesn't suffer anything untoward.

He is protected by our warranty which stands as good as ever regardless of the diesel issue.

Diesel doesn't do any of the fuel injection equipment any good at all as the neoprene or whatever seals in the system are not designed to deal with the change of liquid.

However, the amount is minimal and damage is unlikely. The offer to collect the car and check it over was free of any charge and designed to put his mind at rest that all was Ok. We could have drained out his contaminated fuel and flushed it through at no cost to any of us as we use amounts of petrol testing the imported engines. So we'd use it up in a week or so.

We have to buy fuel for the test rigs so no hardship to us to do it thataway and replace his contaminated fuel with fresh Optimax.

APi looks after its customers - it is not in the habit of cashing in on their misfortune.

As you can probably tell the scaremongering comment has offended me.

David APi

scoobfan

David, Many thanks

I have run the car to Leicester today and she seems fine.
popped into Graham Goodes on the way in and stocked up with booster.

I'll be in touch soon with regards to spending some of my more hard earned !!!

All the best

Rob

DaveW

Don't worry David, not everyone knows you so I wouldn't take it personally.

Sport160

Guys

Slight thread hijack here, but sort of releated.

Which is worse (and why) a tankful of petrol in a diesel (as my wife did recently) or
a tankful of diesel in a petrol.

Lets assume you don't notice and therefore start car and drive off until it stops.

Rgds
Neil

David Lock

Ref the petrol in a diesel. I was at my garage yesterday and my pal at the garage had just dealt with a diesel half filled with petrol. I mentioned the RAC TV warnings of doom and gloom and £3000 damage likely.

He thought that was complete nonsense and said he had never seen any severe damage. He reckoned a diesel could easily run with 20 - 30% petrol added by mistake albeit poorly. Indeed in a Handbook for some older Mercedes it was actually recommended that 20% petrol was added to prevent diesel waxing.

On the diesel in petrol issue I thought that diesel nozzles were larger to prevent entry into a modern unleaded filler pipe??

I can't think that half a gallon of diesel in say 12 gallons of petrol is going to do any harm at all (but it's not my engine )

dazdavies

iTrader: (22)

David,

My apologies. I wasn't aware that the fella who posted was already a customer of yours. So please ignore my previous comment.

I will of course note your excellent customer service in that case.

In that context it does now show nothing but the best intentions

No offence meant.

Daz

ALi-B

iTrader: (1)

The short answer : There's equal risks on both sides.

The Long answer:

Newer petrol cars, running high compression ratios (or turbo/supercharged), and run with much more advanced ignition timings. With increased useage of lighter thinner walled piston designs will make them much more prone to damage (melted pistons, and big end wear from excessive detonation). Catalysts could also overheat and melt from excessive unburnt fuel entering it and ignition/burning.

Diesel running on petrol usually suffers damage from lack of lubrication of the pump units, this alone is a highly expensive component on newer engines (older engines, again are much more tolerant), Any seals in the system can be damaged too. Potentially it can cause these components to fail prematurely - failure is not instant (as the RAC incorrectly state in their ads), the result is reduced component lifespan depending on how much petrol was in there and how far it was driven for (the less the better - obviously).

The very worst case scienario is failure of injector seals allowing them to leak fuel causing continuous combustion or by causing poor spray pattern, allowing fuel to burn directly on top of piston (concetrating the heat into a single spot). The result is melted pistons. This is actually becomming more common, which could be partly due to poor lubrication of cotaminated fuel and the use of newer and less tolerant technology in the injectors combined with higher engine power output (common rail etc, not to mention ECU fueling glitches).

It should be noted that water in diesel is as equally as damaging to diesel engines and associated fueling system as petrol. This highly important and common issue is very often ignored. If your diesel has a water trap...checka nd empty it regulary, regular fuel filter replacement is also an important matter.



My personal experience of diesel in petrol engines was from from when I used to run my bangers on mixes of petrol and diesel which was previous drained out of the tanks of people who made the mistake at the filling stations....I'm not going to turn down free fuel for a car worth £50 (if petrol wasn't so expensive I may have though otherwise )

You could run upto about 25% diesel in a petrol before it starts being a pig. Effects are: hard cold starting, frequently stalling (worse when cold) and excessive smoke on reapply throttle after periods of overrun and using full throttle, with pinking when hot on half throttle (vacuum advancing the ignition). Driven sensibly (and removing vacuum advance or the retarding the ignition on some cars), little effects are noticed apart from the odd puff of smoke on reapplying the throttle. Some older mid 80's cars are capeable of running on 90Ron fuel and lower on stock ignition timing - so these are ideal for running on contaminated fuel.(95ron+diesel will reduce RON value depending on how much is in the tank.)

pslewis

30 years ago it was thought prudent to put some diesel in your petrol engine - to lubricate the upper cylinder.

£2 worth isn't going to do 'diddly squat' damage ... drain pipes/tank/filter blah blah cobblers!

Full tank and its diluted to such an extent that its not an issue - not sure what Octane Booster will do?????? Diesel lowers the Octane Rating does it?

Pete

StephenPope

How much does a can of Pro Boost cost? Now how much does a new engine/ engine re-build cost? Scaremongery or not, I would rather have peace of mind!

I make sure and fill up my wifes car and mine - just in case!!!

ru'

lol, 30 years ago getting 100bhp from a 2 litre car was cutting edge...

ALi-B

iTrader: (1)

Yes it does, so adding octane booster should help conteract it..

Shropshire-Guy

Read this with much intrest. Yes Pete is right they used to put a splash of Diesel in Petrol engines for upper bore lubrication, and vice versa a splash petrol was put in Diesel to avoid waxing in the winter. And i can see were you guys are going with putting octane booster in . Put surely as API David has said , its the condition of the Neoprene seals that would be my worry. Hes offered to collect the car and check it over (Very good customer service in my opinion) . Even if he charges it would be money wisely spent just for peace of mind and the furure life of the Engine. As for the Garage were the deed was Done, they arent going to give a txxs anyway. Just my thoughts on it, if im wrong, im wrong.

Sg.

Hope it turns out right 4 u thou mt8. If my missis had done it, a solicitors letter wud be in the post. lol

Sport160

Ali B

Thanks for explanation.

Rgds
Neil

scoobfan

Yes you are wrong, the garage were very good as my wife got upset, she loves the car as much as i do, they gave her a coffee and calmed her down.

As for the car, it's fine, it's had 2 tank fulls through it and was given a good blast yesterday as a final clear out.

Still has a little puff of blueish smoke on start up but that reduces each time she is started.

Rob

APIDavid

iTrader: (4)

Still has a little puff of blueish smoke on start up but that reduces each time she is started. Rob[/QUOTE]

Is that your wife or the car??

David APi

scoobfan

Is that your wife or the car??

David APi[/QUOTE]

She'd have a job, I've burried her under the patio !!!!

Rob