jasonius

iTrader: (1)

Bit long so please bear with me..

Back in the 'summer' the wife's old man put petrol in his CD220 2002 merc..

Can't recall how far he drove (~10ml iirc), he didn't realise what he'd done until the car wouldn't start later that day..!

Cut a long story short, insurance covered it and it went to main dealer to be sorted. 1 week later..! and it's fixed (all they did was flush out fuel system, new filter etc, no components changed).

So, it's been fine until this week, when the car failed to start. RAC spent nearly 2 hrs checking things, concluding it seemed to be a fuelling problem.

Back to same main dealer (informed insurance co btw) and after two days they recon it's an injector and it's highly unlikely to be liked to the petrol/diesel incident ~3 mths ago.. Therefore, in their opinion, the ins co won't want to know..!

Now the father in law being the person he is has accepted this, even called ins co and cancelled assessor's visit, who was due out that day..

To top it all, main stealer said, £375 and it'll be ready this PM..!!!

Now here's my problem:

1. wouldn't/couldn't the injector have failed as a result of the petrol incident (overheated/seized)..?

2. if only one injector had failed how come the engine wouldn't start at all, surely it should have fired up on 3 cylinders..?

It'll all be for nothing, as F-I-L won't push/question it, but for me it sounds like a bit of a pi55 take..!

Thoughts...

nsld

1. wouldn't/couldn't the injector have failed as a result of the petrol incident (overheated/seized)..?

possibly, but then again possibly not, and why only one and not all of them? on the balance of probabilities its probably a friday injector with the usual merc reliability built in!

2. if only one injector had failed how come the engine wouldn't start at all, surely it should have fired up on 3 cylinders..?

Could be a checksum in the engine management software that needs to see 4 injectors active to allow the engine to start. You have to remember the Germans love there electronic wizzardry even though most of it is rubbish, my other half has an original A class, built by chimps with learning difficulties and the electronic systems in that are a nightmare.

You have to remember that Subarus are essentially farmers cars and you can work on it, Mercs are aluminium and plastic lumps and you cant!

jasonius

iTrader: (1)

I suppose so..

With regards to firing up on 3 cylinders, yes I did think that the ECU may prevent it, but surely, as a 'limp home' measure it would be better to let the engine run on 3 cylinders rather than not at all..!?

The other thing that annoys me is that they had the car 3 days, then say it's an injector, give us nearly £400 and it'll be ready in a few hours FFS..!

To top it off, my old man had the wipers fail on his Renault master van this morning, luckily just as he got home/finished for the day. Knowing he'd need it tomorrow he took it to main dealer. Phoned back a few hours later, £400 to fix (need to replace the whole mech)..! As he needs it for work (which they know) he had no choice but to bite the bullet. How can the switch, motor and mech. all have failed together..?!

Told him to make sure he gets all the 'failed' parts back.

Bloody rip off main stealer's..!

mattwrxCS

iTrader: (1)

It wouldn't have started because of the injector design.

The faulty injector would have been leaking off into the return pipe causing very low fuel pressure in the rail, causing non start as there would be no pressure in the rail for the rest of the injectors.

jasonius

iTrader: (1)

Ah, no problem, thanks for the info..

mikey30

why would you claim insurance for petrol in diesel engine????
its no big deal !!!!
empty tank and change fuel filter...
this engine should start on 3 cylinders as there is no ecu issue that will stop engine from starting!!!
those cdi mercs are **** anyway...
worked on them for years and they give injector trouble !!!!
if it sounds like too expensive for an injector,he should drive a fiat panda or something cheaper for his bank balance IMO...
high pressure diesel injectors are expensive for any make of car!!!
just an honest opinion!!

mattwrxCS

iTrader: (1)

Ha Ha, no big deal, are you serious? If the car has not been driven a long way, you might get away with a flush, if your lucky. If not, its new pumps, lines, rail and injectors. On modern diesel engines with high rail pressure it certainly is a big deal! Worst case, if it is driven until it stops- They have very very small tolereances in the high pressure fuel pump and use the diesel fuel as a lubricant (as we all know). Petrol will strip the lubrication, high pressure pump runs dry, seizes, and because they are chain driven, snap the camshaft. Not a big deal

scoobyboy

if you do it in the new legacy it's 4 new injectors and a high pressure pump straight off theres no if's or but's about it

mikey30

@mattwrx

that is true but very worst case scenario!!!!
i work for the biggest recovery agency in uk and ireland and see this everyday and never have i seen the above happen....

jasonius

iTrader: (1)

Lol, I know of 3 people in the last 18mths, who've had new engines after doing this: 2 ren scenics and a ford mondeo (previous model without 'fuel safe' feature).

All covered via insurance too..!

carlito

iTrader: (5)

Missus put a couple of litres of petrol into our beemer 330d the other day, lucky she realised and stopped. She didn't start the car and I had the RAC tow it to my house.

Took off the flow pipe off the fuel filter under the hood and flushed the system using the ignition on/off which usually primes the system and acts like a pump!

Filled up with diesel and all seems to be fine at the mo.

ALi-B

iTrader: (1)

Mercs with failed injectors is not that uncommon.

Actually cars running similar style injector suffer the same issue (BMW diesel being one I know of)

What happens is that a seal fails on one injector that results in almost total loss of fuel pressure in the fuel rail - so the other injectors don't work (due to insufficient pressure) so the engine won't start. (bear in mind the pressure needed is over 1000bar - 15000psi)

These types of failure on common rails are getting more and more common now (as more of them are about I suppose). In fact during a technical meeting I attended for a manufacturer of plug&play tuning boxes for diesels. We were told to watch out for this, Mercs included. The problem being that these cars would appear to fail after the tuning boxes were fitted.

What actually was happening is the boxes allowed the fuel system to run at its maximum fuel pressure more often. This combined with a weak injector would make a failure happen sooner rather than later.

It was advised that on suspect cars that injector leakage tests were performed, by checking the amount of fuel coming from the spill pipes, but even then its acknowledged that its not a sure sign that an injector will/will not fail.



In conclusion, the petrol may or may not have had a factor. But seeing only one injector failed, its nigh on impossible to directly blame the fuel. If the fuel pump failed (very very expensive BTW), then that would be more likely to be fuel related, as would all the injectors failing within a month or 1000miles so of each other.